Utopianism and Early Modern Scientific Collaboration

NOTCOM is pleased to announce “Utopianism and Early Modern Scientific Collaboration”, a conference taking place on 11 & 12 May 2026. It will be held on both days at the Maison Française d’Oxford.
The conference will discuss various utopian aspects of early modern natural knowledge production, with particular interest in the collaborative institutions dedicated to its advancement. Papers will include discussions of the relationship between early modern missionary writing and utopian fiction; investigations into the link between seventeenth-century arguments for research specialisation and ideal learned societies; and inquiries into ideas of household economy and common goods in early modern utopianism.
Convenor: Niall Dilucia (niall.dilucia@cnrs.fr)
PROGRAMME
(subject to change)
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DAY 1 (MONDAY 11 MAY)
9:30 Welcoming Remarks
9: 45 Professor Richard Scholar (University of Durham): Architectures of Invention in New Atlantis: Bacon’s Empty Plinths
10: 45 Dr Robert Twiss & Dr Laura Mattioli (University of Durham): Para-topias: the disciplinary environs of utopia
11:45 Break
12:15 Professor Gregory Claeys (Royal Holloway, University of London): Some Utopian Roads to Sustainability
13:15 Lunch
14:30 Dr Oana Matei (Vasile Goldis Western University of Arad): Innovation and Scientific Collaboration in Seventeenth-Century Natural Historical Plant Projects
15:30 Dr Mirjam Hähnle (German Historical Institute London): Common Goods and the Household Economy in Early Modern Project Making
16:30 Break
17:00 (Keynote) Professor Vera Keller (University of Oregon): Footnotes in Paradise: The Individual, the Collective, and the Research Specialty in Early Modern Learned Utopias
18:30 End of Day 1
19:00: Conference Dinner (Invited Guests)
DAY 2 (TUESDAY 12 MAY)
9:00 Dr Niall Dilucia (Maison Française d’Oxford/CNRS): Life on Mars? Astronomy and the Boundaries of Seventeenth-Century Collective Curiosity
10:00 Dr Honor Jackson (University of Fribourg): Utopian Practice in the Restoration: Intertextuality, Adaptation, and Drama
11:00 Break
11:20 Professor Chloe Houston (University of Reading): ‘The newe yle, called Utopia’: reading early modern utopias as islands
12:20 Closing Remarks & Lunch
OpenEdition suggests that you cite this post as follows:
adminnotcom (May 8, 2026). Utopianism and Early Modern Scientific Collaboration. NOTCOM. Retrieved June 17, 2026 from https://doi.org/10.58079/15w0c






