Alchemy & the Progressive Imagination at Mount Holyoke, 1912

A  lecture by Associate Professor of Chemistry, W. Donald Cotter

Wednesday, February 24, 2010 at 4:00pm
Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies, 650 East Pleasant Street, Amherst MA, 413-577-3600

Thursday, February 25, 2010 at 7:00pm
Dwight 101

Free and open to the public.

No other scientific discipline has a chapter in its history that stands in relation to its contemporary practice in quite the way that alchemy stands in relation to modern chemistry:  it has been, and remains, variously a pseudo-scientific millstone chemistry has sought unsuccessfully to shake off its back, and a powerfully evocative memory of purposive quest.  American chemists of the Progressive Era embraced their alchemical heritage, and found within it powerful resources for understanding and communicating about their new profession.  The pageantry designed by Emma Perry Carr as the Chemistry Department’s contribution to Mount Holyoke College’s lavish 75th anniversary exercises in 1912 attracted national attention for its dramatic and compelling enactment of this historically grounded self-image.