“A New Visible World”: Philosopher Catherine Wilson on Early Modern Microscopic Records, the Senses, and Thing Theory

Description

The upcoming British Academy event 'Microscopic Records: The New Interdisciplinarity of Early Modern Studies, c.1400–1800' explores the often hardly visible and surprisingly agentive worlds of small materialities. What can early modern objects’ microscopic records tell us about the past life of such artefacts? Can scientific and microscopic analysis of early modern artefacts reveal how such things have been made, used, and perceived? At the same time, this British Academy event also explores the role of microscopic records in the early modern period. Catherine Wilson, formerly Anniversary Professor of Philosophy at the University of York and author of the widely acclaimed monograph 'The Invisible World: Early Modern Philosophy and the Invention of the Microscope' (Princeton University Press, 1995), replied to some questions about the early modern experience and notion of microscopic environments.