Natural Things | Ad Fontes Naturae is a global natural history project in the digital humanities based out of Stanford’s Program in History & Philosophy of Science. Our goal is to trace how natural objects from around the world took on new meaning through the rise of modernity.
In the early modern era, Europeans sought to create a global natural history that could accommodate the plants and animals they encountered overseas into one unified system of knowledge characterized by a shared classificatory system.
Natural Things Conference
Spring 2019
Spring 2019
In Spring 2019, Hamilton College hosted the Inaugural Natural Things Conference. Presenters charted the expansion of natural science in the age of global empires.
In the News
An edited volume titled, Natural Things: Ecologies of Knowledge in the Early Modern World, is forthcoming.
Read more about the Natural Things Conference here