The 2014 Wellesley-Deerfield Symposium on Saturday, March 15, from 9 – 4, will explore visual representations of scientific inquiry produced, collected, distributed or otherwise circulating in New England from the start of the 18th century to the first decades of the 20th century.  Scholars from a wide range of disciplines will address a variety of topics from the use of anatomical and biological models in scientific pedagogy to the impact of mechanical inventions for enhancing vision on artistic and scientific practice.  Presenters include Daria D’Arienzo, Archival Consultant, Nancy Siegel, Associate Professor of History, Towson University, Ellery Foutch, Terra Foundation Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow, The Courtauld Institute of Art, Adam M. Thomas, Ph.D. Candidate, Art History, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Dennis Carr, Carolyn and Peter Lynch Curator of American Decorative Arts and Sculpture, Art of the Americas, Museum of Fine Arts Boston, Lita Tirak, Ph.D. Candidate, American Studies, The College of William and Mary, Peter Benes, Co-Founder, Director, and Editor of the Dubin Seminar for New England Folklife, Naomi Slipp, Ph.D. Candidate, Department of the History of Art & Architecture, Boston University, Catherine Newman Howe, Research Associate, Department of Art, Williams College, and Kathleen M. Raley-Susman, Professor of Biology and Jacob P. Giroud, Jr. Chair of Natural History, Vassar College.

The Symposium will take place in the Collins Cinema, Davis Museum at Wellesley College.  Free and open to the public, but seating is limited.  For further information call 781-283-2043.  Sponsored by the Grace Slack McNeil Program for Studies in American Art at Wellesley College, the Office of Academic Programs at Historic Deerfield, and the Barra Foundation.

Accompanying the Symposium is the Davis Museum exhibit “The Art of Science: Object Lessons at Wellesley College, 1870 – 1940,” in the Robert and Claire Freedman Lober Viewing Alcove, on view through June 22, 2014.