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DESCRIPTION:Elly Truitt will give a Brown Bag Lunch\npresentation on Monday
 \, March 19\, at 12:15 pm. Her talk is entitled\n'Ingenious Inventions and
  the Secrets of Nature: The Marvels of Alexander\nthe Great and Roger Baco
 n in Thirteenth-Century Natural Philosophy.'\n\nAccording to Roger\nBacon 
 (ca. 1220–ca. 1292) a more complete understanding of natural laws and the
 \nproperties of things would foster wonderful inventions: incredibly fast
 \nconveyances that could move independent of animal power\; submarines and
  diving\nbells for exploring the ocean floor\; machines for human flight\;
  and mirrors and\nlenses that could set fire to entire armies or produce t
 errifying and\ndelightful optical illusions. These speculative technologie
 s exemplify the\npromise of scientia experimentalis\, which authenticated 
 natural\nknowledge and offered a blueprint for how human ingenuity could h
 arness the\nsecret\, untapped potential of nature. According to Bacon\, th
 e purpose of scientia\nexperimentalis was threefold: to affirm or refute t
 heories\; to create\ninstruments or machines to pursue knowledge\; and to 
 uncover the secrets of\nnature. In this talk\, Truitt will explore some of
  Bacon’s source material for\nthe fantastical machines and inventions that
  he proposed\, and argue that\nscientific\, political\, and imaginative te
 xts alike influenced his ideas of what\nkinds of machines could be possibl
 e. Like others\, Bacon was strongly influenced\nby earlier Arabic scientif
 ic texts\, particularly Ibn Hayytham’s work on optics\nand on Philip of Tr
 ipoli’s translation of the Kitab sirr al-asrar into\nthe Secretum secretor
 um. These texts offer explanations of how\nhuman ingenuity might use natur
 e to create machines\, instruments\, or effects.\nYet the Alexander romanc
 e tradition also played a role\, as many versions of\nthis widely adapted 
 narrative include manufactured marvels and strange\nmachines. Truitt will 
 demonstrate that Bacon uses his sources to imagine a new\nfuture\, one tha
 t is based in part on the achievements of the past. He\ncombines renovatio
  with innovatio\, the recovery of\npast knowledge with the invention of a 
 new future.\n\nElly Truitt is Associate Professor of Medieval\nHistory at 
 Bryn Mawr College. She did her graduate work in medieval history and\nthe 
 history of science at the University of Cambridge and Harvard University.
 \nHer research has been supported by the National Science Foundation\, the
 \nMax-Planck-Institute for the History of Science\, and the Huntington\nLi
 brary. She is the author of Medieval Robots: Mechanism\, Magic\,\nNature\,
  and Art (University of Pennsylvania Press\, 2015)\, and has\npublished nu
 merous scholarly articles on the history of automata\, astral\nscience\, p
 harmacobotany\, and scientific translation. Her work has also appeared\nin
  Aeon\, History Today\, and the Times Literary Supplement.\nShe is current
 ly working on a project about Roger Bacon.
DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20180319T121500
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20180319T131500
SUMMARY:Bard Graduate Center: Ingenious Inventions and the Secrets of Natur
 e
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