MYJOHNSHOPKINS.EDU
Lawrence Principe
Director, Singleton Center
Drew Professor of the Humanities
History of alchemy/chemistry
Office: 376 Gilman Hall
Phone: (410) 516-7501
E-mail: lmafp@jhu.edu
Recent Publications:
Books:
The Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011).
The Accademia del Cimento and Its European Context, ed. with Marco Beretta and Antonio Clericuzio (Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History Publications, 2009).
Chymists and Chymistry: Studies in the History of Alchemy and Early Modern Chemistry, ed. (Sagamore Beach, MA: Science History Publications, 2007).
New Narratives in Eighteenth-Century Chemistry, ed. (Dordrecht: Springer, 2007); also includes my paper "A Revolution Nobody Noticed? Changes in Early Eighteenth-Century Chymistry," pp. 1-22.
Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry. With W. R. Newman (Chicag University of Chicago Press, 2002).
The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest (Princeton, NJ: Princeton U. Press, 1998).
Articles:
"Wilhelm Homberg et la chimie de la lumière," Methodos: Savoirs et textes 8 (2008); http://methodos.revues.org/
“Revealing Analogies: The Descriptive and Deceptive Roles of Sexuality and Gender in Latin Alchemy,” in Hidden Intercourse, ed. Wouter Hanegraaff, (Leiden: Brill, 2008; Fordham Press, 2011).
“Reflections on Newton’s Alchemy in Light of the New Historiography of Alchemy,” pp. 205-19 in Newton and Newtonianism: New Studies, eds. James E. Force and Sarah Hutton, (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 2004).
“Georges Pierre des Clozets, Robert Boyle, the Alchemical Patriarch of Antioch, and the Reunion of Christendom,” Early Science and Medicine 9, (2004):307-20.
"Wilhelm Homberg: Chymical Corpuscularianism and Chrysopoeia in the Early Eighteenth Century," pp. 535-56 in: Late Medieval and Early Modern Corpuscular Matter Theories, eds. C. Luthy, J. E. Murdoch, and W. R. Newman (Leiden: Brill, 2001).
"Some Problems in the Historiography of Alchemy." With William R. Newman. Pp. 385-434 in Secrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge MA; MIT Press, 2001).
"Apparatus and Reproducibility in Alchemy." Pp. 55-74 in Instruments and Experimentation in the History of Chemistry, eds. Frederic L. Holmes and Trevor Levere, (Cambridge, MA; MIT Press, 2000).
"The Alchemies of Robert Boyle and Isaac Newton: Alternate Approaches and Divergent Deployments." Pp. 201-220 in Rethinking the Scientific Revolution, ed. Margaret J. Osler, (Cambridge: Cambridge U. Press, 2000).
"Alchemy vs. Chemistry: The Etymological Origins of a Historiographic Mistake." With William R. Newman. Early Science and Medicine, 1998, 3:32-65.
"Diversity in Alchemy: The Case of Gaston 'Claveus' DuClo, a Scholastic Mercurialist Chrysopoeian." In Reading the Book of Nature: The Other Side of the Scientific Revolution, ed. Allen G. Debus and Michael Walton, pp. 169-185 (Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Press, 1998).
Available Audio/Video Courses:
History of Science: Antiquity to 1700, (thirty-six 30-minute lectures)
Science and Religion, (twelve 30-minute lectures)
Both are produced and marketed by The Teaching Company, Chantilly, VA, www.teach12.com.
Related Links
The Scientific Revolution: A Very Short Introduction
Chymists and Chymistry: Studies in the History of Alchemy and Early Modern Chemistry
Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry
New Narratives in Eighteenth-Century Chemistry
The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and his Alchemical Quest