Couper Phi Beta Kappa Library Lecture Series
2022 Fall Lectures
The Story Sells the Stone, Or How to Write New Narratives with Jade Artifacts
A talk by Miruna Achim. Cosponsored by the History Department, Latin American Studies Program, and Couper Phi Beta Kappa Library Lecture Series
This talk focuses on the contemporary extraction of jade in the Motagua River Valley, in the wake of (climate-change-induced) storms, which, on the one hand, destroyed vegetation and exacerbated poverty and emigration in the region, and, on the other, laid the ground bare, resulting into increased visibility and exploitation of jade as a resource. Specifically, Prof. Achim inquires into the conceptual and political arrangements that have sustained the differential production of knowledge and ignorance about jade, making it possible for certain narratives of the stone’s use and value to become prominent, while the social and environmental violence pending on its extraction has been silenced and opaqued.
Universal Magic in the Age of Enlightenment: Touzay Du Chenteau’s Great Philosophic Chart and Its Context
Richard W. Couper Lecture by Joscelyn Godwin
The Special Collections of Burke Library has recently acquired a set of three large and magnificent engravings, struck from the original copperplates of 1775. Their creator was Touzay Du Chenteau (or Duchanteau, 1741-1788), who was deeply involved in Masonic and secret fraternities. These engravings belong to his "Philosophical Chart" that unites magic, Kabbalah, alchemy, and Hermetic philosophy in a display of emblematic images, symbols, charts, and tables. They are an early example of the spiritual syncretism that underlay many fraternal and communal movements of the following centuries--visually striking but baffling to the uninitiated. One key to them is that Du Chenteau has illustrated structures from Cornelius Agrippa's Three Books on Occult Philosophy (1533) with images from Robert Fludd's History of the Macrocosm and Microcosm (1617). Professor Godwin, who has published two books on Fludd and much else on esoteric traditions, will explain how this visual encyclopedia works, and tell something of Du Chenteau's life and bizarre spiritual practices.
Burke Library, All Night Reading Room, October 26, 2022, 4:15 PM
Past Lectures
About the Lecture Series
The Couper Phi Beta Kappa Lecture was established in 2005 to honor Hamilton alumnus Richard “Dick” Couper ’44. Couper died in January 2006. Each year a distinguished speaker is invited to present topics related to the college's special library collections or to present an issue related to libraries in general.
