What did Humphry Davy write in his notebooks?

Tuesday 25 June 2024, 7:00pm to 8:00pm

Venue

The Storey Institute, Auditorium, Lancaster - View Map

Open to

All Lancaster University (non-partner) students, Alumni, Applicants, External Organisations, Families and young people, Postgraduates, Prospective International Students, Prospective Postgraduate Students, Prospective Undergraduate Students, Public, Staff, Undergraduates

Registration

Free to attend - registration required

Event Details

Sharon is Chair in Romanticism and current Head of the English Literature and Creative Writing department at Lancaster University, currently leads an AHRC-funded project to transcribe all of the Davy’s notebooks, and will deliver an insightful public lecture.

In this talk, Professor Sharon Ruston will explore notebooks kept by Sir Humphry Davy (1778-1829), the foremost British chemist of the early nineteenth century and a President of the Royal Society. These notebooks shed light on Davy’s creative processes as he isolated elements for the first time, invented the miners’ safety lamp that came to be known as the ‘Davy lamp’, attempted to unroll the Herculaneum papryri, and wrote his famous Royal Institution lectures. The notebooks also reveal that Davy wrote poetry throughout his life, sometimes while in his laboratory at work on his chemical expereiments.

Speaker

Sharon Ruston

English, Lancaster University

Professor Sharon Ruston is Chair in Romanticism and current Head of the English Literature and Creative Writing department at Lancaster University. She has published The Science of Life and Death in Frankenstein (2021), Creating Romanticism (2013), Romanticism: An Introduction(2010), and Shelley and Vitality (2005). She co-edited The Collected Letters of Sir Humphry Davy for Oxford University Press (2020) and currently led an AHRC-funded project to transcribe all of the Davy’s notebooks.

Contact Details

Name John Hardy
Email

j.g.hardy@lancaster.ac.uk

Website

https://www.rsc.org/membership-and-community/connect-with-others/geographically/local-sections/lancashire/

Directions to The Storey Institute, Auditorium

Town centre - close to railway station.