Plants and Empires
Friday, April 14th, 2023
| Date | Time | Location |
|---|---|---|
| Friday, April 14, 2023 | 9:00AM - 4:00PM | External Event, This conference takes place in Room 100, Jackman Humanities Building, 170 St George Street |
Description
This one-day international conference explores the question of “plants and empires” from multiple vantage points: circulation and networks, labour, plant uses (medicinal, perfume, culinary). A host of spaces are considered, including botanical gardens, perfumeries, sites of contact. Plants considered include breadfruit, ylang-ylang and vanilla, amongst many others.
Panel I, 9 AM, Jackman Building, Room 100
Andreas Motsch, University of Toronto, “The discovery of panax quinquefolius (Canadian ginseng): botany, theology and the history of pharmacology.”
Prof. Bertie Mandelblatt, John Carter Brown Library, Rhode Island "Breadfruit between Two Global Empires: Slavery, Subsistence and Imperial Competition from New Guinea to Martinique."
Dr. Oana Baboi, University of Toronto. “Experiences with oriental plants: 16th-century Portuguese surveys of Indian materia medical.”
Thomas Fisher Rare Books Library Visit, 11 AM
Panel II, 2 PM, Jackman Building Room 100
Prof. Owen White, University of Delaware, "A Different Kind of Colonist: Phylloxera in Algeria."
Mathilde Cocoual, Centre de la Méditerranée Moderne et Contemporaine, "Colonisation et nouvelle géographie des plantes à parfum (19e-20e siècle)". Prof. Eric Jennings, University of Toronto, “The French empire’s near vanilla monopoly, 1870-1960.”
Prof. Gillian McGillivray, Glendon College/ York University, "Empire’s Orphan: Cane-sugar and Capitalism in Brazil, 1889-1959."
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