Introducing Women's Alchemical Cultures

• Published in: Early modern women Vol. 15; no. 2; pp. 89 - 92
• Main Author: Chowdhury, Sajed
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chicago Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies 01.03.2021; The University of Chicago Press; University of Chicago Press
• Subjects: Early modern period; Renaissance period; Science history; Scientists; Women
• ISSN: 1933-0065; 2378-4776
• DOI: 10.1353/emw.2021.0027

Over the Use few decades, scholars such as Lynette Hunter, Sarah Hutton, Alisha Rankin, and Meredith Ray have turned to the era of the European scientific revolution--the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries--to investigate women's contribution to the history of science. This research is important because it has spotlighted women scientists from the past and demonstrated that scientific inquiry is not simply a male phenomenon. There is one area in the history of science that has recently started to develop as a burgeoning field of analysis: women's involvement in alchemy. During the Renaissance, alchemy referred to the craft of chemical transmutation, both physical and metaphysical (the conversion of "base" man/woman into a state of spiritual perfection). The forum begins with a literature review by Sarah Hutton that outlines what we currently know about women as practitioners of alchemy in the early modern period. Hutton further adds to the history of alchemy a hitherto understudied figure: the woman philosopher.