Dr. Meredith Small received a Ph.D. in Biological Anthropology from the University of California, Davis, and spent several years studying the behavior of macaque monkeys in captivity and the wild. Although trained as a primate behaviorist, she is now most interested in how the intersection of biology and culture influences human behavior. Besides numerous publications in academic journals, Dr. Small is also a science journalist. Her work has appeared in Discover, Natural History, Scientific American, and New Scientist, among many other magazines and newspapers. She is the author of five other books, including “Our Babies, Ourselves: How Biology and Culture Shape the Way We Parent.” Dr. Small received the Anthropology in Media Award from the American Anthropological Association, and her work has been chosen twice for The Best Science and Nature Writing volumes from Houghton-Mifflin. She is a Weiss Presidential Fellow for excellence in teaching at Cornell University.
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Thermometers, Tiramisu, and Paperbacks
How Venetians Invented Everything
Thursday, May 13, 2021, 1pm EDT
Event Overview
Anthropologist and science journalist Meredith F. Small has turned her scholarly talents to the city of Venice to research and construct a list of over 200 inventions (both ideas and objects) that happened in Venice over its 1,200-year history. During numerous long visits to the city, Dr. Small heard about, read about, and stumbled across these many firsts, eventually coming to the conclusion that Venice had invented much of our modern age. Her recent book, ”Inventing the World: Venice and the Transformation of Western Civilization,” presents these inventions not in chronological order but by subject, emphasizing how Venice impacted modern-day global exploration and trade, finance and money, healthcare, leisure time, and the written word. Dr. Small will also illustrate how the Venetian pattern of ingenuity continues today, as the city rises to again remake itself as a place for invention with an emphasis on sustainability and creativity.
Venetians invented, for example, government bonds, public banks, global currency, quarantine, the thermometer and body scale, the blood pressure device, evidence-based medicine, public street lighting, child labor laws, the paperback book, the semicolon and comma, public casinos, the regatta, and tiramisu, among so many other things. These inventions are set in a narrative that uses the past to connect to the present, and that story is imbued with the Venetian scholars, physicians, inventors, scientists, entrepreneurs, civil servants, publishers, and writers who are the faces behind the great palazzi.
Venetians invented, for example, government bonds, public banks, global currency, quarantine, the thermometer and body scale, the blood pressure device, evidence-based medicine, public street lighting, child labor laws, the paperback book, the semicolon and comma, public casinos, the regatta, and tiramisu, among so many other things. These inventions are set in a narrative that uses the past to connect to the present, and that story is imbued with the Venetian scholars, physicians, inventors, scientists, entrepreneurs, civil servants, publishers, and writers who are the faces behind the great palazzi.
What You'll Learn
- Why humans are so compelled to invent
- What made Venice such a hotbed of invention
- Examples of Venetian inventions that changed the world
- How the Venetian pattern of ingenuity continues today with an emphasis on sustainability and creativity
Speaker
Meredith F. Small
Professor Emerita, Anthropology
Cornell University
University of Pennsylvania
Professor Emerita, Anthropology at Cornell University and the University of Pennsylvania
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