CALL FOR PAPERS
International interdisciplinary conference
Université de Bourgogne, 19-20 June 2025
BOOK OF NATURE, NATURE OF BOOKS
PRACTICES OF FEMALE BOTANISTS
Keynote speakers:
Anne Hodge (Curator of Prints and Drawings, National Gallery, Dublin)
Valérie Chansigaud (Historian of Science, Independent Scholar and Author)
The research centres TIL (Université de Bourgogne) and EMMA (Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3) are organizing a bilingual (French-English) international interdisciplinary conference on the role of women in the development of botany as part of visual, manuscript and print cultures, from the Middle Ages to the contemporary period.
We propose to foster discussions relating to the interconnections between natural science history, print and book culture, visual and gender studies as well as ecocriticism. Papers may focus on a wide variety of case studies pertaining to any geographical area, from herbals to non-fiction writing, from publishers’ and libraries’ archives to museum collections, or from the garden to the diary and to the printed book. They will address the role of women as amateur or professional botanists, gardeners, members of clubs, illustrators, diarists, writers, publishers, and in any other capacity where their individual practices bear on forms of manuscript and print artefacts.
The following themes will be of particular interest:
- The book of nature and its legacy
- Itineraries of Women and Plants
- Records, archives and publicity
- Circulation of manuscript and print artefacts
- Spaces of practice and display
- Botany, illustration and nature writing
- Amateur and professional science
- Female crafting and the intermedial circulation of models

Full CFP accessible at: https://til.u-bourgogne.fr/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CFP-final-EN-FR-botanique-IC-2025.pdf

Please send a 300-word abstract and a biobibliography (in English or French) before 31st October 2024 to bookofnature2025@gmail.com
Notification: 15th December 2024. The programme will be finalized in January 2025.
After the conference, submission of papers for publication: 30th September 2025.
Scientific Committee: Dr Marie-Charlotte Anstett (CNRS, Université de Bourgogne); Dr Anna Cabanel (KU Leuven); Dr Kathleen Davidson (University of Sydney); Rodolphe Leroy (Université de Bourgogne); Dr Katherine Manthorne (City University of New York); Dr Clélia Nau (University Paris-Cité); Dr Ann Shteir (York University, Canada).

Organizing committee: Sophie Aymes, Marie-Odile Bernez, Ali Hatapçı, Candice Lemaire (Université de Bourgogne), Valérie Morisson (Université Paul-Valéry Montpellier 3).