The Institute is rapidly growing and increasingly attracting scholars, scientists, and curious. Since January 2010, its Web site has been checked by almost 10,000 visitors coming from 99 out of the 208 current countries worldwide. Subscribers are constantly more numerous, as are also Members for whom a Member Only package of benefits will be created soon. The Institute is present in several forums and one of its Honorary Trustees has received a prestigious award.
As early as July 9-13, 2011, IPMT CEO Emanuela Appetiti and IPMT Scientific Director Alain Touwaide will attend the Botany 2011-Healing the Planet conference in St. Louis MO, USA, William L. Brown Center, Missouri Botanical Garden. The Societies participating in the 52nd Annual Meeting of the Society for Economic Botany will include the Society for Economic Botany, the American Fern Society (AFS), the American Society of Plant Taxonomists (ASPT), and the Botanical Society of America (BSA). Here is the full program of the conference.
In the Historical Section, on Monday, July 11, 2011, 1:45pm-3:15pm, Alain Touwaide will present two papers: When History Meets Genetics: Horseradish in Antiquity and History and Economic Botany: Some Methodological Reflections.
Shortly after (July 14-17, 2011), Alain Touwaide will talk about New Books, Ancient Manuscripts: The Fallacies of Renaissance Botanical Illustration in Washington, DC, USA, at The Book in Art and Science - SHARP Conference 2011, in the session Readings of the Renaissance Herbal: Art, Botany, and Poetry, scheduled on Sunday, July 17th, 9:00am-10:30am, at the Ripley Center, Smithsonian Institution. The session is organized and will be chaired by Historian of Botany Karen M. Reeds (Princeton Research Forum and Visiting Scholar, University of Pennsylvania), who will also deliver a paper on Leaves between the Leaves: The Herbal as Herbarium. Leah Knight of Brock University (St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada), will present a paper on Intertextual Mowers, or How Andrew Marvell Read Gerard’s Herbal.
Moving from plants and books to the objects used to transform plants into medicines Alain Touwaide wil present a seminar for the Smithsonian Resident Associates on July 18, 2011: A Look into Ancient Apothecaries. He will examine ancient Greek, Latin, and Arabic texts, including Dioscorides and Galen, which describe materials and how plants should be ground, mixed, prepared, and used. Booking is strongly recommended!
We are happy and proud to report that IPMT Honorary Board member Nancy Turner, Ethnobotanist at the University of Victoria, has been appointed to be the first Hakai Chair in Ethnoecology, endowed with a $1.25-million grant provided by the Hakai Beach Institute. The Institute is a private, non-profit organization dedicated to environmental sustainability, public service, research and teaching, and is located on Calvert Island, north of Port Hardy.
The five-year Chair will allow Nancy Turner to focus on research, working closely with Aboriginal groups - in particular, the Heiltsuk Nation - as collaborative research partners. The grant also will enable graduate students to gain experience in the field through research, field studies and teaching.
