When:
Monday, November 17, 2014
4:00 PM - 5:30 PM CT
Where: University Hall, Hagstrum Room, UH 201, 1897 Sheridan Road, Evanston, IL 60208 map it
Audience: Faculty/Staff - Student - Public - Post Docs/Docs - Graduate Students
Contact:
Natasha O Dennison
(847) 491-3525
Group: Science in Human Culture Program
Category: Lectures & Meetings
SHEILA WILLE
AKIH, History, and EPC, Northwestern University
"The Insect Empire Invades! Unmanageable Nature in Eighteenth-century Britain and the Empire"
Description: Over the course of the eighteenth century, insects were increasingly visible to Britons both at home and abroad. British naturalists, colonials, and agriculturalists noticed, discussed, and wrote more about insects’ destructive and invasive capabilities, as well as their potential profitability and aesthetic qualities, than they ever had before. Primarily, though, these men began to see insects as natural forces to be managed by the industrious for the benefit of the nation and humanity. In this talk, I will examine the increasing visibility of insects over the course of this period and pay special attention to the growing consensus that humans were both able and compelled to intervene in insectile Creation. Perhaps surprisingly, the late-century encouragement of human intervention is not a case study in the secularization of science, but shows instead the remarkable adaptability of seventeenth-century natural theology – especially its foundational assumptions about the stability and fruitfulness of nature – to the program of enlightened entomological improvement.
Bio:
reception to follow