Dr Sarah Easterby-Smith

Dr Sarah Easterby-Smith

BA(Hons) (York), MA, PhD (Warwick)

 

Contact Details

E-mail -ses22@st-andrews.ac.uk
Telephone - +44 (0)1334 463307
Fax - +44 (0)1334 462914

 

Teaching and Research Interests

I teach and research modern European history, with a special interest in the global connections and transnational links made between France, Britain and the wider world in the eighteenth century.  My research focuses on the relationship between science, society and culture during this period, and on how information, knowledge and cultural influences moved (or failed to move) between nations and across social groups.  I am currently completing my monograph, Cultivating Commerce, which studies the social history of botany in France and Britain between 1760 and 1815. The book exposes the close connections between botany and an expanding plant trade, and with shifting cultures of connoisseurship, during the period. My research interests encompass the histories of consumption, curiosity and gender in the eighteenth century as well as the history of science and global history. I would be happy to hear from students considering pursuing any of these themes for undergraduate or postgraduate study.

   

Main Publications

  • ‘Thinking Through Things’, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part A 43(1) (March 2012), pp. 208-212.
  • ‘Credibility and Trust in Transatlantic Botanical Networks’, Working Paper – Max Weber Postdoctoral Programme. Red Number Series 2011/12.
  • ‘Propagating Commerce: Plant Breeding and Market Competition in London and Paris, ca. 1770 – ca. 1800’, in Jean-Paul Gaudillière, Daniel J. Kevles and Hans-Jorg Rheinberger (eds),
    Living     Properties, Making Knowledge and Controlling Ownership in the History of Biology. Preprint 382 (Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, 2009), pp. 11-20.

Forthcoming

Books

  • Cultivating Commerce: Connoisseurship, Botany and the Plant Trade in Britain and France, 1760-1815. Book manuscript currently under completion.

Articles and book chapters

  • ‘Cross-Channel Commerce: The Circulation of Plants, People and Botanical Culture Between France and Britain, c. 1760-c.1789’, in Lise Andries and Frédéric Ogée (eds), An Intellectual Journey. Translation, circulation and adaptation in England, France and Ireland in the Enlightenment (Oxford: SVEC)
  • ‘Selling Beautiful Knowledge: Amateurship, Botany and the Marketplace in Late Eighteenth-Century France’, Journal of Eighteenth Century Studies 36.4 (December 2013)
  • ‘Reputation in a box. Objects, communication and trust in late eighteenth-century botanical networks’. Accepted for publication in History of Science.

 

External Admin Duties

Social History Society – Executive Committee member and co-convenor of the ‘Economies, Culture and Consumption’ strand.

Member of the Editorial Board for St Andrews Studies in French History and Culture


Teaching Duties

I teach the honours module MO3221: Politics, Culture and Society in the French Revolution, 1789-1815
I also co-teach on the following courses: