Smith, Pamela H.

Seth Low Professor of History; Director of the Center for Science and Society

Pamela Smith's CV

Office Hours

Fall 2024: Wednesdays, 2:30 - 4:30 PM

 

Education

Ph.D. — The Johns Hopkins University, 1991
B.A. (Hons) — University of Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia, 1979

 

Interests and Research

Pamela H. Smith, professor, specializes in early modern European history and the history of science. Her current research focuses on attitudes to nature in early modern Europe and the Scientific Revolution, with particular attention to craft knowledge and historical techniques.  She is founding director of The Making and Knowing Project, founding director of The Center for Science and Society, and chair of Presidential Scholars in Society and Neuroscience.


In The News:

 

Courses
Fall 2024

HIST UN2978. Science and Pseudoscience: Alchemy to AI
Tuesdays and Thursdays 2:40pm-3:55pm
During the 2020 US presidential election and the years of the COVID-19 pandemic,
science and “scientific truths” were (and are) fiercely contested. This course provides a
historical perspective on the issues at stake, and shows how science and pseudoscience
developed in tandem in the period from 1400 to 1800. This historical account equips
students to examine contemporary issues of expertise, the social construction of science, pluralism in science, certainty and uncertainty in science, as well as critical engagement with contemporary technologies.

HIST GU4962. Making and Knowing in Early Modern Europe: Hands-On
History
Wednesdays 10:10-12
This course introduces undergraduate and graduate students to the materials,
techniques, contexts, and meanings of skilled craft and artistic practices in early modern Europe (1350-1750), in order to reflect upon a series of topics, including craft knowledge and artisanal epistemology; the intersections between craft and science; and questions of historical methodology in reconstructing the material world of the past. The course will be run as a “Laboratory Seminar,” with discussions of primary and secondary materials, as well as hands-on work. The class sessions include discussion sessions and hands-on work in the Making and Knowing Laboratory.

Spring 2025

HIST GR8137. Industryscapes: Socio-natural Sites of Resource, Extraction, and Knowledge in the Preindustrial World
Wednesdays 10:10-12
From about 1400, Europe saw very rapid expansion of industries such as shipbuilding, mining, wood extraction and transport. These industries have mainly been studied by economic and technology historians along a short timeline of boom, outputs, and decline. In contrast, this course aims to introduce and investigate natural, social, cultural, and material ecologies of these industries over the long term to track change over time in relationships between humans and the environment. The course will introduce students to the concepts and methods of describing and analyzing socio-natural sites, to recent research and conceptualization of “extraction,” “resource,” and consider attitudes to the natural world foreclosed by European colonial extraction.

OTHER COURSES
 HIST G9102: Knowledge in Transit in the Early Modern World
 HIST W3103: Alchemy, Magic, and Science
 HIST W4120: Witchcraft and the State in Early Modern Europe
 HIST GU4101: The World We Have Lost: Daily Life in Premodern Europe

 

Awards

  • Honorable Mention, Phyllis Goodhart Gordan Prize for the best book in Renaissance studies, for From Lived Experience to the Written Word: Reconstructing Practical Knowledge in the Early Modern World (2022), 2024
  • Edmond J. Safra Visiting Professorship, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery, 2024
  • George L. Mosse Prize for the most distinguished book on the intellectual and cultural history of Europe since 1500 from the American Historical Association, for From Lived Experience to the Written Word: Reconstructing Practical Knowledge in the Early Modern World (2022), 2023
  • The Joseph H. Hazen Education Prize for outstanding teaching in the history of science from the History of Science Society, 2023
  • Herzog August Bibliothek and the Hans and Helga Eckensberger Stiftung international Wissenschaftspreis for Cultural History and the History of Knowledge, 2023
  • John M. Sherwood Memorial Lecture in the History of Science and Technology, Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, 2023
  • Digital Innovation Award for Secrets of Craft and Nature, Renaissance Society of America, 2022
  • Elizabeth B. McNab Lecture, McGill University, 2021
  • The Eugene S. Ferguson award to The Making and Knowing Project for a reference work that supports future scholarship in the history of technology, 2019
  • Leo Gershoy Prize for The Body of the Artisan awarded in early modern European History by the American Historical Association, 2005
  • Pfizer Prize for The Business of Alchemy awarded for best book of the year in the history of science by the History of Science Society, 1995
  • Scholar in Residence, Robert H. Smith Renaissance Sculpture in Context, Victoria & Albert Museum, London, May 2012
  • Visiting Scholar, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, Berlin, July 2011
  • Alliance Program, seed grant for project on “Circulating and Connecting Knowledge in Early Modern Europe, 1450-1850,” with Bruno Belhoste, Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne, 2009-10
  • Fellow, Davis Center for Historical Studies, Princeton University, 2009-10
  • Samuel H. Kress Paired Fellow, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., co-grantee Tonny Beentjes, Programme Leader, Metalwork Conservation, Instituut Collectie Nederland (ICN), Amsterdam. 2007-08
  • NSF Grant #SES-0444302 for Conference on "Ways of Making and Knowing: The Material Culture of Empirical Knowledge," London 11-15 July 2005
  • Andrew Mellon Foundation New Directions Fellowship for research at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, 2003-04, 2009-10
  • Getty Research Institute Scholar, 2000-01
  • Visiting Fellow, Downing College, Cambridge, 2000
  • John S. Guggenheim Fellow, 1997-98
  • National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowship, 1997-98
  • Sidney M. Edelstein International Fellowship for research in the history of chemistry, 1997-98
  • Fellow, Wissenschaftskolleg - Institute of Advanced Study, Berlin, 1994-95

 

Publications

Books

From Lived Experience to the Written Word: Reconstructing Practical Knowledge in the Early Modern World (University of Chicago Press, 2022)

Making and Knowing Project Research and Teaching Companion, edited by  Making and Knowing Project, Naomi Rosenkranz, Pamela H. Smith, Tianna Helena Uchacz, Terry Catapano, (New York: Making and Knowing Project, 2024), https://teaching640.makingandknowing.org/. (This open-access Companion to Secrets of Craft and Nature in Renaissance France contains resources developed for teaching hands-on activities by the Making and Knowing Project and its many collaborators. It includes reflections and tips on integrating hands-on activities into the classroom as well as lesson plans, sample student projects, and much more.)

Secrets of Craft and Nature in Renaissance France: A Digital Critical Edition of Ms. Fr. 640, edited by the Making and Knowing Project, Pamela H. Smith, Naomi Rosenkranz, Tianna Helena Uchacz, Tillmann Taape, Clément Godbarge, Sophie Pitman, Jenny Boulboullé, Joel Klein, Donna Bilak, Marc Smith, and Terry Catapano, eds., Secrets of Craft and Nature in Renaissance France. A Digital Critical Edition and English Translation of BnF Ms. Fr. 640 (New York: The Making and Knowing Project, 2020), http://edition640.makingandknowing.org.

Pamela H. Smith, ed., Entangled Itineraries: Materials, Practices, and Knowledges across Eurasia (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2019).

The Matter of Art: Materials, Practices, Cultural Logics, c. 1250-1750, co-edited with Christy Anderson, Anne Dunlop (Manchester University Press, 2014).

Ways of Making and Knowing: The Material Culture of Empirical Knowledge, co-edited with Amy Meyers and Harold J. Cook (Bard Graduate Center/University of Chicago Press, 2014; new ed. 2017).

Making Knowledge in Early Modern Europe: Practices, Objects, and Texts, 1400-1800, co-edited with Benjamin Schmidt (University of Chicago Press, 2008).

The Body of the Artisan: Art and Experience in the Scientific Revolution (University of Chicago Press, 2004; 2018).

Merchants and Marvels: Commerce, Science and Art in Early Modern Europe, co-edited with Paula Findlen (Routledge, 2002).

The Business of Alchemy: Science and Culture in the Holy Roman Empire (Princeton University Press, 1994, new ed. 2016).

Selected Articles and Book Chapters

Pamela H. Smith and Isabella Lores-Chavez, “Counterfeiting Materials, Imitating Nature,” in Marjolijn Bol and Emma Spary, eds., The Matter of Mimesis: Studies of Mimesis and Materials in Nature, Art and Science (Leiden: Brill, 2023), pp. 27-53.

Andrew Lacey and Pamela H. Smith, “Thinking through Molds: Metal Flow and Visualizing the Unseen,” Special issue on Metalwork, West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture, edited by Caspar Meyer and Ittai Weinryb, Volume 28, Number 2, Fall–Winter 2021: 259-68.

Pamela H. Smith, “Lifecasting,” in Secrets of Craft and Nature in Renaissance France. A Digital Critical Edition and English Translation of BnF Ms. Fr. 640, ed. Making and Knowing Project, et al. (New York: Making and Knowing Project, 2020).

Tillmann Taape, Tianna Helena Uchacz, and Pamela H. Smith, “Schooling the Eye and Hand: performative methods of research and pedagogy in the Making and Knowing Project,” Berichte zur Wissenschaftsgeschichte, 43 (2020): 323-40.

Pamela H. Smith, Tianna Helena Uchacz, Naomi Rosenkranz, and Claire Conklin Sabel, “The Making of Empirical Knowledge: Recipes, Craft, and Scholarly Communication,” in Reassembling Scholarly Communications: Histories, Infrastructures, and Global Politics of Open Access, ed. Martin Paul Eve and Jonathan Gray (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2020), pp. 125-144.

“Artisanal Epistemology,” Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy, ed. Marco Sgarbi (Springer, doi:10.1007/978-3-319-02848-4_1182-1), 2018.

“Des recettes et des secrets à l’expérience: le “Making and Knowing Project,” Toulouse Renaissance, Musée des Augustins, Toulouse (Paris: Somogy éditions d’art, 2018): 340-43.

“The Codification of Vernacular Theories of Metallic Generation in sixteenth-century European Mining and Metalworking,” The Structures of Practical Knowledge: Toward Early Modern Science, Matteo Valeriani, ed. (Springer/Dordrecht, 2016).

Guest Editor, New Directions in Making and Knowing, a special issue of West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture 23.1 (2016): 3-101, with 4 invited essays, and an introduction (3-5), including “The Making and Knowing Project - Reflections, Methods, and New Directions,” co-authored with Donna Bilak, Jenny Boulboullé, and Joel Klein (Postdoctoral Scholars, the Making and Knowing Project): 35-55.

“Historians in the Laboratory: Reconstruction of Renaissance Art and Technology in the Making and Knowing Project,” Art History, special issue on Art and Technology, 39.2 (2016): 210-233 (co-authored with the Making and Knowing Team; students from the 2014-15 Columbia University course, Hist G8906: Craft and Science: Making Objects in the Early Modern World; students in the University of Amsterdam M.A. in conservation and restoration of cultural heritage, metals specialization course; and students from the V&A/RCA PhD in History of Design).

“Introduction” and “The Matter of Ideas in the Working of Metals in Early Modern Europe,” The Matter of Art: Materials, Practices, Cultural Logics, c. 1250-1750, Christy Anderson, Anne Dunlop, Pamela H. Smith, eds. (Manchester University Press, 2015.)

“Between Nature and Art: Casting from Life in Sixteenth-Century Europe,” Making and Growing: Anthropological Studies of Organisms and Artefacts, Elizabeth Hallam and Tim Ingold, eds. (Ashgate, 2014).

“Introduction” and “Making as Knowing: Craft as Natural Philosophy,” Ways of Making and Knowing: The Material Culture of Empirical Knowledge, co-edited with Amy Meyers and Harold J. Cook (Bard Graduate Center/University of Michigan Press, 2014).

“Knowledge in Motion: Following Itineraries of Matter in the Early Modern World,” in Daniel Rogers, Bhavani Raman, Helmut Reimitz, eds, Cultures in Motion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2014), 109-33.

“In the Workshop of History: Making, Writing, and Meaning,” Shaping Objects: Art, Materials, Making, and Meanings in the Early Modern World, an article series of West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture, 19 (2012): 4-31.

“What is a Secret?  Secrets and Craft Knowledge in Early Modern Europe,” Secrets and Knowledge in Medicine and Science, 1500-1800, ed. by Elaine Leong and Alisha Rankin (Ashgate, 2011): 47-66.

“Science,” A Concise Companion to History, ed. by Ulinka Rublack (Oxford University Press, 2011): 268-97.

“Why Write a Book? From Lived Experience to the Written Word in Early Modern Europe,” Bulletin of the German Historical Institute, 47 (Fall 2010): 25-50.

“Nature and Art, Making and Knowing: Reconstructing Sixteenth-Century Life Casting Techniques” (with Tonny Beentjes), Renaissance Quarterly, 63 (2010): 128-179.

“Vermilion, Mercury, Blood, and Lizards: Matter and Meaning in Metalworking,” in Materials and Expertise in Early Modern Europe: Between Market and Laboratory,” ed. by Ursula Klein and Emma Spary (University of Chicago Press, 2010), pp. 29-49.

“Science in Motion: Recent Trends in the History of Early Modern Science,” Renaissance Quarterly,62 (2009): 345-375.

“Alchemy as the Imitator of Nature,” Glass of the Alchemists, catalog for an exhibition at the Corning Museum of Glass, ed. by Dedo von Kerssenbrock-Krosigk (Corning Museum of Glass, 2008), pp. 22-33.

“Collecting Nature and Art: Artisans and Knowledge in the Kunstkammer,” in Engaging With Nature: Essays on the Natural World in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Barbara Hannawalt and Lisa Kiser (University of Notre Dame Press, 2008), pp. 115-136.

“Artisanal Knowledge and the Representation of Nature in Sixteenth-Century Germany,” The Art and History of Botanical and Natural History Treatises, ed. Therese O'Malley and Amy Meyers (Washington D.C., The National Gallery Center for the Advanced Study of the Visual Arts, 2008), 14-31.

“Making and Knowing in a Sixteenth-century Goldsmith’s Workshop,” in The Mindful Hand: Inquiry and Invention between the Late Renaissance and Early Industrialization, ed. Lissa Roberts, Simon Schaffer, Peter Dear (Amsterdam: KNAW Press, 2007), 20-37.

“Laboratories,” ch. 13, The Cambridge History of Science, Vol. 3: Early Modern Europe, ed. Lorraine Daston and Katharine Park (Cambridge University Press, 2006), pp. 290-305.

 

Affiliations

  • Renaissance Society of America
      ◦ President 2016-18 (Vice President 2014-16; Past President 2018-20)
      ◦ Associate Editor, Renaissance Quarterly and Council Member, 2006-12
      ◦ Gordan Prize Committee member, 2008-09.
  • Scientific Advisory Committee, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, 2013-2019.
  • Board of Editors, History of the Humanities, 2014-present
  • Editorial Board, Journal of Modern History, 2014-2019
  • Steering Committee, V&A Research Institute, 2014-2016
  • Advisory Board member, Genius Before Romanticism: Ingenuity in Early Modern Art and Science, ERC grant project, Cambridge University, 2014-2020
  • Expert Advisory Committee, Library of the New York Academy of Medicine, 2014-2016
  • Editorial Board, Early Modern Cultural Studies, Centre for Renaissance and Reformation Studies, University of Toronto, 2016-
  • Advisory Board, The Stevanovich Institute on the Formation of Knowledge, the University of Chicago, 2014-2016
  • American Historical Association
      ◦ Board of Editors, American Historical Review, 2008-11
      ◦ Executive Council, 2004-06 (elected position)
      ◦ Research Division Committee member, 2005-06
      ◦ Gershoy Prize Committee, 1996-98
  • History of Science Society
      ◦ Nominating Committee member (elected position), 2000-01 and 2008-09
      ◦ Executive Committee member, History of Science Society, New York Section, 2008-present
      ◦ Osiris Editorial Board, 2000-04
      ◦ Executive Council (elected position), 2000-02
      ◦ Committee on Education, 2000-02, Chair 20001-02
      ◦ Isis Editorial Board, 1997-2000
      ◦ President, West Coast History of Science Society, 1997
  • Society for Austrian and Habsburg History, Executive Council, 2003-08
  • Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek, Advisory Board, 2008-present
  • Bard Graduate Center and University of Michigan Press series, "Cultural Histories of the World," -External Editorial Board Member, 2009-2017
  • Interpretatio: Sources and Studies in the History and Philosophy of Classical Science, Editorial Advisory Board member, 2007-present
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