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Speaker: Ingrid De Smet (I Tatti / University of Warwick)
This seminar presents work in progress on the theme of my larger book project, Outwitting Nature: Humans, Nature and Technology. I intend to highlight Neo-Latin writings as a pivot between Antiquity and modernity, by looking at the exploitation of water for food and recreation in the European Renaissance (c. 1300-c. 1700). While transmission of technical knowledge is traditionally seen as belonging to the realm of the vernacular, I ask what Neo-Latin texts can teach us about rivers, lakes, ponds and marshlands and their management as sites for nourishment and entertainment, based on a selection of Latin texts (presented in translation) on fishing as well as catching waterfowl.
Ingrid De Smet studied Classics and Medieval Studies at the KU Leuven (Belgium). Following doctoral studies at St John's College, Cambridge, and a Prize Fellowship and British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship at Magdalen College Oxford, her career is especially associated with the University of Warwick (UK), where she is a Professor of French and Neo-Latin Studies. Ingrid specialises in the intellectual culture of sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century France, the Low Countries, and Italy (Republic of Letters; Wars of Religion; Neo-Latin; Classical tradition; history of scholarship; history of the book). Her research has been supported, amongst others, by the British Academy, the Arts and Humanities Research Board (UK), The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the Modern Humanities Research Association, and The Leverhulme Trust. She is a Fellow of the British Academy and Member of the Academia Europea. A former member of the Executive Committee of the Renaissance Society of America and Past President of the International Association of Neo-Latin Studies, Ingrid De Smet has a keen interest in promoting doctoral and early-career research development.
Image: Titian, Fishing Scene ((c)Harvard University, Berenson Library (Fototeca) U97206)
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