News & Events
JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU AND BOTANY: THE SALUTARY SCIENCE
(Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, December 2012)
Book launch
EXHIBIT GENEVA SWITZERLAND
USEFUL LINKS
Bilingual exhibit on Rousseau and Botany that I curated in the Conservatory and Botanical Gardens, Geneva, Switzerland.
"Je raffole de la botanique", Rousseau
"I am crazy about botany", Rousseau
25 May - 14 October 2012, the exposition has been extended from 14 January until 28 June 2013 at the Rousseau College (visitis by appointment)
Links to exhibition website:
Interview on World Radio Switzerland (22.06.2012)
Dig It! Jean-Jacques Rousseau's love of botany
Hester Macdonald
Minute : 5.20 – 6.30 and 6.54-11.02
TV Interview Léman Bleu (30.05.2012)
Genève Aujourd’hui, culture
Presented by: Ana Markovic
Minute 9.30
Article and Interview Tribune de Genève (24.05.2012)
Jean Jacques Rousseau est retourné au Conservatoire et Jardin botaniques
Demir Sönmez
Jean-Jacques Rousseau vu par ... ses spécialistes dans le monde
Alexandra Cook Hong Kong, Chine
In L'Hebdo, hors série, Jean Jacques Rousseau 1712-2012 (2012): 77
COLLOQUIUM LICHTENBERG-KOLLEG
The herbarium as scientific object: 1545 - present, 10 December 2013
Fellowship Lichtenberg-Kolleg -- The Göttingen Institute of Advanced Study
PRIZES & AWARDS
Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Botany: the salutary science
The Society for the History of Natural History - JOHN THACKRAY MEDAL 2013
University of Hong Kong Press Release:
HKU scholar of philosophy Dr Alexandra Cook receives the prestigiousJohn Thackray Medal of the Society for the History of Natural History 2013
Dr Alexandra Cook, Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong, has been awarded the prestigious John Thackray Medal of the Society for the History of Natural History in London for her book, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and botany: the salutary science (Oxford: The Voltaire Foundation, 2012). She was presented with the Thackray Medal on 19 July 2014 at the Society’s Annual General Meeting held at Magdalen College, Oxford. Dr Cook was also awarded the HKU Arts Faculty Research Output Prize 2012-13 for this work.
In its commendation, the Thackray Medal Award Committee stated: “Dr Cook’s scholarship is impressive. Her interpretation of Rousseau’s taxonomic views, how they developed and how (and why) they have been distorted by later commentators, is original and compelling.”
Professor Douglas Kerr, Dean of Arts, added, “The Faculty is very proud to hear that Dr Cook has been awarded the John Thackray Medal. This is further recognition of her outstanding and insightful work on Rousseau. Her book has shed new light on this philosopher’s study and practice of botany.”
The major strength of this book… is the important exposure of the various post-mortem manipulations and misinterpretations of Rousseau’s botanical writings, showing that he was not, as often stated, a champion of Linnaeus’s sexual system, but that he took a more flexible approach, leaning towards more natural systems. This radical re0interpretation of his botanical work is what distinguishes the content of this book.
Comment from the John Thackray Medal award panel (April 2014)
LECTURE Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Botany
Institute for the History of Natural Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing
Friday 9 May, 09:30-11:30
Dr Cook has been very active in knowledge exchange projects in France and Switzerland based on her award-winning research on Rousseau; these include a major outdoor exhibit she curated in 2012 at the Botanical Garden of Geneva to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Rousseau’s birth (http://www.ville-ge.ch/cjb/rousseau_intro.php). Dr Cook is also a Fellow of the Linnean Society of London (founded in 1788), which is under the patronage of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II.
About the John Thackray Medal
The Society for the History of Natural History is a leading international organization devoted to the documentation and recognition of scholarship relating to the history of natural history. The Society’s Patron is the noted scientist and broadcaster, Sir David Attenborough. Instituted in 2000 to commemorate the life and work of John Thackray, Past President of the Society, this medal is awarded for a significant achievement in the preceding three years in the history of those areas of interest to the Society, that is the biological and earth sciences in the broadest sense. http://shnh.org.uk/awards-honours-medals/john-thackray-medal/
About Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), best known for his Social Contract, studied botany for many years; he rejected conventional medical uses of plants and advocated studying them in a contemplative and personally rewarding way. He also devised practical pedagogical tools for botany such as a novel set of 1,000 characters for denoting different plant parts and characteristics. Rousseau popularized botany in a series of letters that were translated from French into English, Danish, Dutch, Portuguese and Russian in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. More recently, Rousseau’s letters on botany have been translated into Chinese."
University of Hong Kong - RESEARCH OUTPUT PRIZE 2012-13
5 February 2014 (Wednesday)
Dr Alexandra Cook, Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy, has been awarded the Research Output Prize 2012-2013 for her work, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and botany: the salutary science, published by the Voltaire Foundation, University of Oxford.
Universally studied for his writings on politics, philosophy, morality and education, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s interest in botany has been deemed a mere curiosity. In this radical reinterpretation Dr Cook demonstrates how this seemingly marginal activity shaped and was shaped by his philosophy.
Rousseau’s botanical project was informed by his belief in the superiority of nature over artifice – a principle illustrated in his famous Lettres élémentaires sur la botanique, in which he used the ‘natural method’ of plant classification, a ground-breaking system which would eventually triumph over rival systems. Based on a wide range of original sources, Dr Cook traces and re-assesses Rousseau’s botanical education, the complex history of his plant collections, and his participation in scientific correspondence networks. She also reveals how his botanical writings were manipulated and misinterpreted following his death.
In this richly illustrated study, supported by inventories of Rousseau’s botanical library, correspondents and herbaria, Dr Cook provides an unprecedented insight into the philosopher’s study and practice of botany. Not simply an intellectual pursuit, it became part of his physical and psychological self-discipline, a precursor to today’s ‘environmental therapy’.
The Outstanding Researcher Awards scheme aims to recognise HKU academics who excel in research. All recipients of the Awards will be honoured at the upcoming award presentation ceremony for excellence in teaching, research and knowledge exchange on March 26, 2014 at Loke Yew Hall.