Credits

In the development of the Making and Knowing Project’s Research and Teaching Companion, many individuals have contributed, including instructors, scholars, students, researchers, practitioners, makers, organizers, advisors, developers, designers, and supporters. The Companion represents the culmination of many years of iterative, interdisciplinary, and collaborative work by countless dedicated and enthusiastic members, individuals, and networks of the Making and Knowing Project.

Research and Teaching Companion Contributors

Senior Editorial Team for the Companion

• Naomi Rosenkranz
• Pamela H. Smith
• Tianna Helena Uchacz
• Terry Catapano

Senior Digital Team for the Companion

• Terry Catapano
• Nick Laiacona and team at Performant Software Solutions
• Naomi Rosenkranz

Planning and Implementation for the Companion

• Pamela H. Smith
• Naomi Rosenkranz
• Tianna Helena Uchacz
• Tillmann Taape
• Sophie Pitman
• Donna Bilak
• Terry Catapano
• Caroline Surman
• Gregory Schare

Research and Teaching Companion WorkSprint, April 2024

The Making of Secrets of Craft and Nature in Renaissance France

The Making and Knowing Project’s creation of the edition of Ms. Fr. 640, Secrets of Craft and Nature in Renaissance France: A Digital Edition of BnF Ms. Fr. 640, underpins the structure and content of this Research and Teaching Companion; for more about the creation of the edition, see About the Edition and Pamela H. Smith, Making the Edition of Ms. Fr. 640. For the numerous individuals involved in the creation of the edition, see Credits. Although not everyone named below worked directly on the Research and Teaching Companion, their research, teaching, and participation contributed to its content.

Project Team and Staff for Secrets of Craft and Nature

• Founding Director: Pamela H. Smith
• Assistant Director: Naomi Rosenkranz
• Making and Knowing Project Postdoctoral Scholars:
  • Senior Postdoctoral Scholar (2016-20): Tianna Helena Uchacz
  • Postdoctoral Scholar (2017-20): Tillmann Taape
  • Postdoctoral Scholar (2019-20): Clément Godbarge
  • Postdoctoral Scholar (2017-18): Sophie Pitman
  • Postdoctoral Scholar (2014-16): Jenny Boulboullé
  • Postdoctoral Scholar (2014-17): Joel A. Klein
  • Postdoctoral Scholar (2014-17): Donna Bilak
  • Gerda Henkel Postdoctoral Research Scholar (2019-20): Sarah Muñoz
  • Gerda Henkel Postdoctoral Research Scholar (2017-19): Colin Debuiche
• Project and Communications Manager: Caroline Surman
• Lead Paleographer: Marc Smith
• Digital Lead: Terry Catapano
• Digital Designer-Developer: Nick Laiacona and team at Performant Software Solutions

Making and Knowing Project Managers, Assistants, and Interns

• Research Associate (2014-15): Claire Sabel
• Project Manager and Graduate Research Assistant (2014-15): Jef Palframan
• Research Assistant (2014-15): Miriam Pensack
• Copy Editor (2016-20): Hannah Elmer
• Editorial Assistants:
  • Kelsey Troth (2019-20)
  • Ray Abruzzi (2019-21)
  • Christian-Joseph Macahilig (2020-21)
  • Lydia DeFusto (2024)
• Digital Programming Assistants:
  • Bingyan Hu (2015-16)
  • Sharan Suryanarayanan (2016)
  • Philip Cherian (2016-18)
  • Emre Tetik (2016-2018)
  • Ludovic Touzé-Peiffer (2017)
  • Matthew Kumar (2019-20)
  • Gregory Schare (2020-24)
  • Sophia Qureshi (2021)
• Programming Teaching Assistants:
  • Atif Ahmed (2016-17)
  • Mehul Kumar (2016-17)
  • Varsha Maragi (2016-17)
  • Raj Biswas (2018-19)
  • Samantha Siu (2018-19)
• Digital Humanities Teaching Assistants:
  • Jeffrey Wayno (2016-17)
  • Jenna Schoen (2019)
• Laboratory and Studio Teaching Assistants:
  • Nilam Patel (2015)
  • Bella Buscarino (2016)
  • Scott Sonnenberg (2016-18)
  • Carolin Rechberg (2018)
• École Polytechnique Alliance Interns:
  • Margot Lyautey (2016)
  • Philip Cherian (2016)
  • Ludovic Touzé-Peiffer (2017)
  • Roni Kaufman (2020)
  • Dana Chaillard (2020)
• High School Interns:
  • Christine Hu (2016)
  • Karuna Vikram (2016-2017)
  • Charlotte Nahley (2017-20)
  • Divya Mehrish (2018)
  • Camilla Shulman (2018)
  • Annika Cunningham (2021-2022)

Making and Knowing in Early Modern Europe: Hands-on History Laboratory Seminar Participants

This hybrid laboratory-discussion advanced undergraduate / intro graduate seminar offered through Columbia’s History Department combined historical research with hands-on skill-building and reconstructions of Ms. Fr. 640’s recipes in the Making and Knowing Laboratory. This course was adapted from the graduate-level course Craft & Science (described below) and offered after the publication of Secrets of Craft and Nature. Students were asked to develop final projects that explored ways to interact with Secrets of Craft and Nature or engage with its themes.

Instructors: Pamela Smith with Naomi Rosenkranz and Caroline Surman

Craft & Science: Making Objects in the Early Modern World Laboratory Seminar Participants

This hybrid laboratory-discussion graduate seminar offered through Columbia’s History Department combined historical research with hands-on skill-building and reconstructions of Ms. Fr. 640’s recipes in the Making and Knowing Laboratory. The teaching and student work in this course was foundational in creating the content for the Research and Teaching Companion.

Each semester of the Craft and Science Lab Seminar was driven by a guiding theme to draw together components of the manuscript and provide focus for analysis and activities, as described below.

• Instructor: Pamela H. Smith
  
• Co-instructors:
  
  • Donna Bilak (2014-17)
  • Jenny Boulboullé (2014-16)
  • Joel A. Klein (2014-17)
  • Tianna Helena Uchacz (2016-20)
  • Sophie Pitman (2017-18)
  • Tillmann Taape (2017-20)

Expert Makers

Invited for their expertise, Expert Makers stayed in residence at Columbia for two weeks to lead students in skill-building activities specific to the year’s theme and consult with students on their final project topics.

• Tonny Beentjes (Fall 2014)
• Andrew Lacey (Spring 2015)
• Marjolijn Bol (Fall 2015)
• Erma Hermens (Spring 2016)
• Divya Anantharaman (Fall 2016-Spring 2017)
• Jo Kirby (Fall 2018)
• Ad Stijnman and support from the Art and Art Education Program, Teachers College (Fall 2018)

Students by Semester

Moldmaking and Metalworking: Participants focused on molding and casting materials and techniques in Ms. Fr. 640 and undertook skill-building in historical culinary reconstruction, breadmolding, sugar casting, sand casting, and plaster molding.

Colormaking: Participants focused on painting, varnish, colored glass, and dyeing entries in Ms. Fr. 640 and undertook skill-building in historical culinary reconstruction, gem-making, canvas and panel preparation, making lake pigments, verdigris growing, and painting.

Practical Knowledge: Participants focused on vernacular natural history, practical optics, mechanics, and medicine entries in Ms. Fr. 640 and undertook skill-building in historical culinary reconstruction, breadmolding, verdigris growing, making lake pigments, and painting.

Ephemeral Art: Participants focused on techniques and materials for impromptu decoration in Ms. Fr. 640 and undertook skill-building in historical culinary reconstruction, breadmolding, azurite levigation, verdigris growing, making lake pigments, dyeing, stucco-making, and painting.

Making Impressions: Participants focused on techniques for printing, impressing, incising, inscribing, and pinking in Ms. Fr. 640 and undertook skill-building in historical culinary reconstruction, breadmaking, verdigris growing, linocut, woodcut, engraving, and etching.

Digital Humanities Seminar Participants

2017 Spring: What is a Book in the 21st Century? Working with Historical Texts in a Digital Environment

Instructors: Pamela H. Smith and Terry Catapano with Tianna Helena Uchacz and guest lectures by Steven Feiner

Using the Project’s working English translation of Ms. Fr. 640, participants considered issues in textual criticism and editing, and they prototyped a minimal digital edition of the manuscript text using a collaboratively determined intellectual agenda for semantic markup.

2019 Spring: Transforming Texts:Textual Analysis, Literary Modeling, and Visualization

Instructors: Pamela H. Smith, Dennis Tenen, Tianna Helena Uchacz, Steven Feiner with Terry Catapano and Carmine Elvezio

Using the Project’s working transcriptions and English translation of Ms. Fr. 640, participants considered issues in the materiality of the book and digital text and prototyped explorations of the manuscript drawing on methods in digital mapping, textual analysis, and augmented reality.

Columbia University Libraries and the Center for Teaching and Learning

Staff members of the Libraries’ Digital Scholarship Division helped set the parameters of the Edition to ensure its archival preservation and its discoverability, which also informed the Research and Teaching Companion. Research Librarians and staff from the Libraries’ Conservation Lab taught components of the Project’s Text Workshops, Laboratory Seminars, and Digital Humanities Seminars. Staff members of the Center for Teaching and Learning helped the Project design its Digital Humanities Seminars around precepts in skills- and problem-based learning.

• Ann Thornton
• Barbara Rockenbach
• Stephen P. Davis
• Alex Gil
• Ben Armintor
• Marii Nyrop
• Nicky Agate
• Mark Newton
• Mona Elayyan
• Michelle Wilson
• Madiha Choksi
• Kathryn Pope
• Meredith Levin
• Alexis Hagadorn
• Lucy Appert
• Jessica Brodsky
• Michelle Hall
• Jonah Bossewitch

For additional Making and Knowing collaborators, see Collaborations on the Project’s website.