Our Easter term card is now live! Join us on Wednesday for scintillating discussion of Gifts and Diplomacy in the Long Eighteenth Century 🎁 Applications are also open to speak at our symposium on 9 June alongside our wonderful keynote @sallyholloway.bsky.social. See below for more info 👇

Thrilled to have been recognised in this lovely award by @historicaljnl.bsky.social! Huge thanks to @marloavidon.bsky.social for being an excellent camerawoman on a cold and rainy day 💐

The Historical Journal@historicaljnl.bsky.social · 5mo ago

📢We are delighted to announce that Zara Kesterton (@zarakesterton.bsky.social) has been jointly awarded The Historical Journal ECR Prize for her article 'Artificial Flowers in the Credit Records of an Eighteenth-Century French Fashion Merchant' ✨Hear Zara explain more in her HJ Highlight!

Hot off the press — our reading list for the coming term. Join us every other Wednesday, 12-1pm, at Gonville and Caius to discuss cities in the long eighteenth century 🌇

Our mini-symposium will follow our termly discussion group – this term, on Cities. We meet fortnightly and lunchtimes at a central Cambridge location. To stay abreast of any news, you can subscribe to our mailing list here: lists.cam.ac.uk/sympa/subscr...

We're excited to announce our CFP for our Lent term mini-symposium on the theme of Cities! We're thrilled to have Professor Miles Ogborn as our keynote speaker. If you are a Cambridge-based postgraduate, recent postgraduate, or ECR do think of applying by 12 February!

A reminder that our Salon symposium is tomorrow afternoon, Wednesday 26 November! Our theme is ‘The Senses’ and we’re taking an embodied, medical history, musical, and craft-based approach to the long eighteenth century.

The Salon got off to a fantastic start last week when we discussed smell! This week, it’s Taste, and we’ll be meeting 12-1pm tomorrow in the Junior Parlour at Caius. We’ll discuss Robles’ chapter on ‘Squid’ in Natural Things in Early Modern Worlds + the online exhibition kitcheninthecabinet.com

Our first session of the term takes place tomorrow (Wednesday 15th) at 12 noon! Please note the updated location in the Junior Parlour, Gonville & Caius

Many thanks to @zarakesterton.bsky.social for a very generous review of Shoes and the Georgian Man in the new issue of Selvedge. Much appreciated! www.selvedge.org/products/iss...

Issue 127 Aurora (Pre-Order)

COMING NEXT AURORA–Northern light Out 15 October FLAX AND FOOTBALL–Christian Jeffery PATTERN PLAY–Marimekko DIZZYING DELIGHTS–Valentino SPARKING JOY–Folk dress of Eastern Telmark A SMOKING SHUTTLE–Wel...

selvedge.org

Calling all Cambridge postgrads! Come to our discussion group and symposium

Long Eighteenth Century Cambridge@18thcenturycam.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Our workshop has a new look this term: The Salon. Discussion group meeting alternate Wednesdays 12-1pm in the Stephen Hawking Room, Trinity Hall. Our symposium on 26 November will feature a keynote by Dr Anna Maerker (KCL). Want to speak? Email us 18thcenturycam@gmail.com.

Excited to see this published @frenchhistory.bsky.social! ‘Only illusions are amusing …’: nature, artifice and femininity in eighteenth-century France through the lens of Louis de Carmontelle' by @zarakesterton.bsky.social 🌼🌺🌸🎨 academic.oup.com/fh/article/d...

‘Only illusions are amusing …’: nature, artifice and femininity in eighteenth-century France through the lens of Louis de Carmontelle

Abstract. This article considers the watercolour portraits of Louis de Carmontelle as a commentary on the relationships between illusion, reality, artifice

academic.oup.com

🌹I was so lucky to take part in an incredible conference: “Plants & People: the Cultivation and Propagation of Botanical Knowledge Among Non-Professional Communities, c. 1600-1800" (8-9 July 2025) at Cambridge; organised by @zarakesterton.bsky.social and @lucyjhavard.bsky.social 🌱 🌿 🌺

That’s a wrap on #plantsandpeople! Thanks to all of our wonderful speakers, keynotes, artists, and attendees for two days of fantastic discussion and hands-on experimentation. Over and out from @zarakesterton.bsky.social and @lucyjhavard.bsky.social !

Now for the final paper of the day! We hear from Christina Welch from the University of Winchester on ‘People and Plants in the Colonial Caribbean: Indigenous and Enslaved African People’s Medicinal and Horticultural Knowledge’ 🌱 🌅 🌺 #peopleandplants

Next up is a paper by Margaux Shraiman entitled 'A Surinamese Butterfly Among Cape Flowers: Maria Sibylla Merian’s Copies of botanical illustrations from the Cabinet of Johanna Breda and Levinus Vincent' 🌼🦋 #plantsandpeople

…and a glimpse into our earlier study session at the Fitzwilliam Museum, a tour of the botanical highlights of the prints and drawings collection led by Catherine Powell Warren 🌷🖌️ #plantsandpeople

Our final panel of the conference on ‘Empire and Knowledge’ begins with Joseph Bienko’s paper on 'Baconian Buccaneering: William Dampier’s Excursion to Panama' ⛵️🌿 #plantsandpeople

And now for the final paper of this panel on Medical Knowledge… Lauren Owen’s from Florida State University speaks to us about recipes for health and wellness in 18thC France! #plantsandpeople

Our third panel of the conference on Medical Knowledge kicks off with a paper from Nikolas Brusletto on ‘Botanical Knowledge in the Norwegian Black Books: Folk Medicine, Embodied Experience, and Social Networks’! #plantsandpeople

We have two workshops running in tandem this morning at the #plantsandpeople conference - one on botanical images at the Fitzwilliam Museum, and a practical workshop on early modern dye production with Nabil Ali! Thanks to @jesuscollegecam.bsky.social for the use of your greenhouses!

Our second and final keynote of the day, @leoniehannan.bsky.social now speaking on ‘Plants as Process: Embodied Knowledge and the ‘Liberty of Air’’! #plantsandpeople

And moving to the final paper of this panel, ‘Gardening as Knowledge Practice: Historical Handbooks for Kitchen Gardens’ by Sanne Steen 🪏🪴📚 #plantsandpeople

And now it’s time for Janet Stiles Tyson’s paper, ‘A Curious Herbal in the Commercial Book Market’, examining Elizabeth Blackwell’s famous illustrated work #plantsandpeople

And we’re back, fuelled after a lovely lunch break! 🥗 🌯🥪 We begin our panel on ‘Books and Knowledge’ with a paper from Grace Murray from Birkbeck entitled ‘Marginalia and Memory Books: Writing Garden Labour in Eighteenth-Century London’ #plantsandpeople

The final paper of this panel is from Maja-Lisa Müller from Universität Bielefeld, entitled ‘Mushrooms and Mimesis: 18thC Wax Models as Deictic and Didactic Boundary Objects’! 🍄🍄‍🟫🍄

Now we hear from Alasdair McNeill from Birkbeck on ‘Cheesemakers and Plant Knowledge in Early Modern England’! 🧀🌻 #plantsandpeople

Now onto our first panel on ‘Embodied Knowledge’! We begin with a paper by Océane Fontaine Cioffi on ‘Naming Selecting, and Using Plants: Botanical Knowledge in 16thC Perfumery’… 🌸🌺🪻#plantsandpeople

The best thing about running a conference is inviting your dream keynote speakers! Follow along for updates throughout today and tomorrow 🌸

Plants and People 2025 conference@people-plants-2025.bsky.social · last yr.

Kicking off #plantsandpeople with a fantastic keynote from Catherine Powell-Warren on ‘Plants as Vectors in Female Artistic Community Building’!

Our next event of term is taking place TODAY! (Monday 2nd June) at 5.30 pm (not 5 pm!) in the Junior Parlour at Gonville & Caius College. We'll be hearing papers from João Moreira da Silva @joaomoreiradasilva.bsky.social and Andrés Jácome. All are welcome to join!

Only two spaces left for our Natural Dyes workshop, and our Botanical Illustrations study session is already sold out! Grab your spot here: sites.google.com/view/plants-...

Plants and People - Workshops

Please note that the following workshops have limited capacity and will be allocated on a first-come, first-served basis. Please register using the Google Form link below and inform the organisers imm...

sites.google.com