Voyages of maintenance: Exploration, infrastructure, and modernity on the Krusenstern-Lisianskii circumnavigation between Russia and Japan from 1803 to 1806.

Against the common association of voyages of exploration with discovery and the arrival of modernity, this essay argues that maintenance and repair were essential to the success of such voyages and that maintenance and innovation are best seen as fundamentally integrated. Using the Russian circumnavigatory voyage of Adam von Krusenstern and Urey Lisianskii in 1803-7 as a case study, the essay explores the diverse forms and roles of infrastructure and repair work in enabling a voyage of exploration, and reveals the tensions and debates that considerations of maintenance evoked among ships' officers, crews, and the peoples they encountered.

Preserving nature: domestic thrift and techniques of conservation in early modern England.

Against an assumption that conservation practices only became 'scientific' in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, this essay shows how, on the contrary, preservation techniques in early modern England were an inspiration for new forms of scientific inquiry and knowledge. Following the framework of 'thrifty science', the essay demonstrates how the thrifty value of making use and extending the life of goods encouraged a variety of preservation practices, which some scholars identified as valuable resources for a new experimental philosophy. In practice, preserving techniques crossed between domestic, experimental and academic sites. Since 'thrifty science' included the preservation of human and non-human 'bodies', the essay argues that an appreciation of early modern conservation necessitates an interdisciplinary approach.

Alchemical Practice: Looking Towards the Chemical Humanities.

This special issue of Ambix is an outgrowth of the Tenth Annual Postgraduate Workshop titled "Society and the Creation of (al)Chemical Knowledge" hosted by the Embassy of the Free Mind in Amsterdam, 29-30 November 2019. This meeting of early career scholars with a shared interest in the history of alchemy and chemistry illustrated the diversity of methodological approaches that contribute to this subfield. Alchemical knowledge, created through practice, language, and material culture, has permeated society since the ancient world. Adepts and laity alike learned to navigate and appropriate the seemingly paradoxical hermetic language and images of alchemy, applying them to an array of societal needs that span time and place. The editorial essay to this special issue of Ambix considers alchemical knowledge-creation through the social lens of language and practice and proposes the inclusive concept of the "Chemical Humanities" to address variations within alchemical practice and the diverse scholarly research methodologies presented in this special issue. We examine the history of chemistry using approaches from the humanities, arts, and sciences and consider the effects of interdisciplinary research today and for the future of alchemical scholarship.

Introduction: Rethinking Joseph Banks.

Following a series of workshops funded by AHRC (Arts and Humanities Research Council), the papers in this special issue provide new perspectives on the naturalist Sir Joseph Banks (1743-1820). Moving beyond a focus on Banks's work with Captain Cook's first voyage of exploration to the Pacific, the papers expand on, while challenging, views of Banks as a 'centre of calculation' and all-powerful agent of science and imperialism in Georgian Britain. Banks is shown to have relied on a variety of expert men and women as actors and audiences for botany, operating with more diversified agendas and practices than previous pictures of him have suggested.

Making fire work: pyrotechnics and natural philosophy.

Everyone is familiar with fireworks, common to festivals and celebrations across the world. At first glance, the history of science might appear to have little to do with the history of these explosive devices. However, fireworks were an important element of court culture in Europe, which relied on spectacle and festival to manifest the power of princes. From the fifteenth century, courts regularly set off fireworks around elaborate theatrical scenery and ephemeral temples, fascinating audiences with a variety of exotic motions and effects exploding in the night sky. Fireworks also intrigued natural philosophers, and over several centuries there were diverse interactions among the sciences and pyrotechny.