Part of the Early Modern Research Cluster
Abstract:
Between 1765 and 1771, German botanist, entomologist, mycologist and theologian Jacob Christian Schäffer undertakes a series of minutely recorded experiments on producing paper from materials other than cotton and linen: wood chips, grapevines, poplar seeds, wasp nests and moss. Schäffer’s work comes in the wake of earlier eighteenth century treatments of the topic, but significantly differs from these in its methodical approach, creative applications and concrete results. My talk will consider Schäffer’s overall contribution to a more subtly differentiated understanding of the history of eighteenth-century paper-production in the European context, and the rise of a new discourse on paper as a subject of technology and academic cameralism
About the Presenter
Ilinca Iurascu (UBC, CENES)
Ilinca Iurascu is Assistant Professor of German in the Department of Central, Eastern and Northern European Studies at UBC. Her research currently focuses on media theory, cultural studies and the history of paper during the eighteenth and long-nineteenth century.
