The Science History Institute is pleased to cohost the Fall 2025 meeting of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (SHAC). Invited speakers will present papers for discussion on topics ranging from medieval medicine to modern climate science.

Please contact fellowships@sciencehistory.org with any questions about the event.


Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry logo

The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (SHAC), founded in 1935, has a long-standing tradition in the fields of alchemy and chemistry, organizing colloquia, publications and promoting the interdisciplinary study of the field from its early beginnings to the present. It brings together members interested in the history of chemistry and alchemy from across the world. SHAC holds meetings and webinars, offers scholarly prizes and grants, and publishes the journal Ambix. The Society’s newsletter, Chemical Intelligence, is published twice a year.

Conference Program

Thursday, October 16

1:30pmRegistration and coffee
2pmMeagan Allen
Johns Hopkins University
Roger Bacon’s medical analogies in the Epistola de secretis operibus artis et naturae et de nullitate magiae
2:40pmMatteo Soranzo
McGill University
Searching for the Philosophers’ Stone in Quattrocento Venice: Cristoforo da Parigi’s Summetta, a Forgotten Bestseller
3:20pmClaire Litt
Tufts University
A Missing Link in Medicean Alchemy: The Book of C.P.

4pmTea/Coffee
4:30pmStefania S. Buosi-Moncunill
University of Barcelona
Alchemy of the Forest: Sacred Plants, Golden Wine, and Healing Powers Across Continents


5:10pmBrian Li
University of Cambridge
White Stones vs. Jade: The Aesthetics of Bodily Alchemy in Early Modern China

5:50pm




Sarah Lang
University of Graz

Farzad Mahootian
New York University
Computational Studies of Martin Ruland’s Lexicon Alchemiae




6:30pmShort break
6:45pm



Keynote Lecture

Alan Rocke
Case Western Reserve University
Gay-Lussac Aeronaute: Constructing a Career in the Napoleonic Era




8pm

Reception
sponsored by Taylor & Francis

Friday, October 17

9:30amTea/Coffee
10am


Sarah Lowengard
Independent Scholar

Vegetable–Animal Transformations


10:40am



John Powers
Virginia Commonwealth University

John Redman Coxe and the New Chemistry in Early 19th-Century America



11:20am

George Borg
University of Pennsylvania
Modelling the Carbon Cycle, 1953–1981: A Foundational Debate in Modern Climate Science
12pmLunch
1:30pmStephen Weininger
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Air Power and Pure Chemistry: Bartlett, Ingold, and the Diffusion of Physical Organic Chemistry

2:10pmPatrick Charbonneau
Duke University
From Göttingen to Bristol to Cambridge: Lennard-Jones and the Emergence of Computational Quantum Chemistry
2:50pmTea/Coffee
3:30pmChristopher Halm
Deutsches Museum
Escaping Earth, Sustaining the Moon: Chemistry and the West’s Narrative Redemption—Once from World War II, Now from the Climate Crisis
4:10pmJeffrey I. Seeman
University of Richmond
Recent Advances in the History of Modern Chemistry

4:40pmDeparture

Featured Image: Plate III: The Modern Chemical Apparatus. No.3 from Volume 4 of the Encyclopaedia Londinensis; or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature, 1800

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