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Welcome to the Website of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (SHAC), publisher of the scholarly journal Ambix.


Founded in 1935, SHAC has consistently maintained the highest standards of scholarship in all aspects of the history of alchemy and chemistry from early times to the present. The Society has a wide international membership from over thirty countries.

We hold meetings and webinars, offer scholarly prizes and grants, and publish the journal Ambix. The Society’s newsletter, Chemical Intelligence, is published twice a year. We have also established the Graduate Network to bring together postgraduate students in the field.

Keep up to date with the news and events of SHAC by following us on Facebook and Twitter.

You can watch our SHAC Online Seminars on YouTube here.

 

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Please note that changes are processed manually and you will receive a confirmation email when our records have been updated. For any queries please find relevant contact information on https://www.ambix.org/contact-us/

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The Summer 2024 Issue of Chemical Intelligence is online!

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Please find SHAC’s latest edition of Chemical Intelligence where you will find information of upcoming conferences and details of the latest research funded by SHAC grants among other information of interest to members here:

Final_ChemIntelligence-S2024Download

Also please note the Society’s AGM minutes are now online https://www.ambix.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/07/SHAC-Final-AGM-Minutes-1190304-May-2024.pdf

SHAC Postgraduate and Early Career Workshop, 14th January 2025, Online / St John’s College, University of Oxford

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The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (SHAC) invites proposals for the 2025 iteration of its annual postgraduate and early career workshop, ‘Alchemy and Chemistry as Vessels for Cultural Discourse’. This conference seeks to explore the interface between (al)chemical work and various facets of culture outside of the laboratory. For as long as the disciplines have been studied, alchemy and chemistry have not only been integral to scientific discourse, but have also served as mirrors reflecting the social, political, and religious currents of their times.

Papers might explore, for example, the ways in which alchemical iconography reflects the political tensions of the climate in which they were produced, as well as the role of chemistry in the Industrial Revolution or the discipline of astrochemistry reflecting a Zeitgeist of interest in worlds beyond our own.

Selected papers from the conference will be considered for publication in a special edition (or special series) of Ambix: Journal for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry.

We welcome proposals for 20 minute talks by graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and early career scholars who have received their doctorate no more than three years ago. If you are interested in presenting your work, please send an abstract of approximately 300 words and a short bio to SHAC Student Representative Josh Werrett, at studentrep@ambix.org. The deadline for submissions is 30th September 2024.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Josh Werrett at the above email address.

SHAC Autumn 2024 Meeting CfP

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The Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry (SHAC), in collaboration with the Allard Pierson of the University of Amsterdam and the Centre for History of Hermetic Philosophy and Related Currents (HHP), invites abstract submissions for its Annual Autumn Meeting on  ‘Alchemy, Freemasonry, Hermeticism and Rosicrucianism’, to be held at the Allard Pierson on 11 October 2024. The meeting will be hybrid, although we strongly encourage in-person attendance. In its extensive collections, the Allard Pierson holds the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica State collection of around 4,400 rare manuscripts and printed works relating to the hermetic tradition, assembled by Dutch businessman Joost Ritman.

For this meeting, we invite proposals for papers related to the alchemical material in the collection. The keynote speaker will be Prof. Stephen Clucas (Birkbeck, University of London). There will be an exhibition of some of the highlights of the collection.   

Submissions can be individual presentations, panels with 3 speakers, or roundtable proposals. Presentations should not exceed 20 minutes in length. Please submit your abstract of 250-300 words, together with a CV or a paragraph detailing your background, to Peter Forshaw: p.j.forshaw@uva.nl by 22 July 2024. 

Preliminary Timetable:
45-minute Keynote + 12 20-minute papers 
9:00 registration and coffee
9:30 Welcome
Keynote 10:00-11:00
Coffee 11:00-11:15
Session 1 11:15-12:30 
Lunch 12:30-13:30
Session 2 13:30-14:45
Session 3 14:45-16:00
Coffee 16:00-16:15
Session 4 16:15-17:30
Roundtable: 17:30-18:00 

Titles of works in the collection can be found via the University of Amsterdam Library Catalogue (using the search terms Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica and selecting ‘Allard Pierson Depot’ in the Library filter on the right of the screen): Approximately 100 manuscripts from the collection have been digitized: The Allard Pierson can provide an Excel file of all the books and manuscripts in the Bibliotheca Philosophica Hermetica State collection. 

Allard Pierson on Google Maps

The 2024 Morris Award goes to Carsten Reinhardt

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The Society for the History of Chemistry wishes to announce that the Morris Award for 2024 has been given to Carsten Reinhardt for his outstanding work on the recent history of chemistry and the history of the chemical industry. He has been an innovator and a leader in the history of modern chemistry and chemical industry from the beginning of his career, exploring the instrumental, theoretical, commercial, industrial, and regulatory dimensions of the field that we call chemistry, while emphasizing the frequent “disappearance” of “chemistry” into other fields, such as molecular biology, materials science, nanotechnology, or environmental science. He has a gift for collaboration and cooperation that has greatly benefitted studies in the history of chemistry and chemical technology.  

Carsten Reinhardt took his PhD on chemical research at BASF and Hoechst between 1863 and 1914 at the Technical University of Berlin in 1996. He became Professor for Historical Studies of Science, University of Bielefeld in 2007 and between 2013 and 2016, Reinhardt was President and CEO, Chemical Heritage Foundation, Philadelphia, USA (now the Science History Institute). From 2017 until 2021, he was the President of the Gesellschaft für Geschichte der Wissenschaften, der Medizin und der Technik (GWMT) and is a co-editor of the Mitteilungen der Fachgruppe Geschichte der Chemie.  

The Morris Award honours the memory of John and Martha Morris, the late parents of Peter Morris, the former editor of Ambix and recognises scholarly achievement in the History of Modern Chemistry (post-1945) or the History of the Chemical Industry. The recipient of the award gives the Morris Award Lecture at an appropriate meeting and this is usually published in Ambix. Previous holders of the award are Ray Stokes (2009), Mary Jo Nye (2012), Anthony Travis (2015), Yasu Furukawa (2018) and Ernst Homburg (2021).   With Best Wishes   Frank James

Next online seminar: Discovering elements in the age of radioactivity

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The next on-line seminar of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry will be given by Professor Annette Lykknes (Norwegian University of Science and Technology) and Dr Brigitte Van Tiggelen (Science History Institute) who will present: Discovering elements in the age of radioactivity – two contrasting stories


This will be live on Thursday, 23 May 2024, beginning at 5.00pm BST (6.00pm CEST, 12 noon EST, 9.00am PST). The format will be a talk of 20-30 minutes, followed by a moderated discussion of half an hour.
As with recent seminars the Zoom link can be freely accessed by anyone, member of SHAC or not, by booking through the following Ticket Source link:

https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/society-for-the-history-of-alchemy-and-chemistry/t-rpdojdx

The seminar will be also accessible live on YouTube at https://youtube.com/live/D1w48_ba2tU

Most previous on-line seminars can be found on the SHAC YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/SocietyforHistoryofAlchemyandChemistry

Discovering elements in the age of radioactivity – two contrasting storiesAnnette Lykknes and Brigitte Van Tiggelen In a forthcoming edited volume on the nature of element discoveries the authors explore the discovery histories of selected chemical elements. The case studies presented allow to problematize and explore the unfolding of discoveries, how they are reported and what stage is considered as the discovery as well as how predictions and assumptions on what could exist shape these processes in scientific and historical practice. In this talk, we will present two contrasting stories from the context of radioactivity research.The first one is what might be considered as well-known discovery histories, namely those of radium and polonium, the very first new radioactive elements uncovered by Marie and Pierre Curie. But the new radioactive elements proposed by the Curies had not even been separated from the mineral fractions in which they were detected, and the main means of their identification was neither the balance nor the spectroscope which were the accepted ways of detecting elements but rather their characteristic and unique radioactivity.The second story looks at retrospective assessment and assignment of elemental discoveries, focusing on four claimed instances of element 43, before it was produced by nuclear means with a cyclotron and acknowledged by IUPAC and the chemical community as technetium in 1947. Going back in time, historians and scientists identify several “precursors” of technetium and a closer look at masurium, nihonium, davyum and ilmenium provide an opportunity to reflect further on the nature of discovery by taking into account the context of narration.

SHAC Spring Meeting ‘From Antique to Early Modern Alchemy: New Approaches, New Horizons’

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You are invited to attend the SHAC Spring Meeting ‘From Antique to Early Modern Alchemy: New Approaches, New Horizons’ held on 28 and 29 May 2024 at Maison Française d’Oxford.   The meeting will host panels on topics that include ancient perfume making in Egypt and Assyria, alchemical symbolism and imagery, the use of new techniques such as machine learning for the history of alchemy or practical experimentation and furnace reconstructions. Please see programme attached for more information.  

The keynote speaker is Prof Jennifer M. Rampling (Princeton), who will talk on “Alchemical Monsters”.   Attendance is free but registration is required. Please register at the following link: https://www.ticketsource.co.uk/society-for-the-history-of-alchemy-and-chemistry/t-nogqvop.  

The event will also be hosted in hybrid format. A hybrid link will be provided about a week prior to the event.   Please note the meeting ends at 1pm on 29 May. It is followed up by another related (and free) event, the Oxford Seminar in the History of Alchemy and Chemistry, ‘Meissen Coloration and Pacific Chemical Medicine’, featuring Nicholas Zumbulyadis (Delaware) and Mariana Sanchez (Paris), from 3pm to 5pm at Maison Française d’Oxford.

This is an in-person only meeting.  

SHAC-Spring-Meeting-2024-ProgrammeDownload