The Winter Lecture Series at Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum will start tonight after its would-be first event last week was postponed. The series- entitled "Women in the Natural World"- starts tonight with a consideration of the work of a woman born in the wake of ground-breaking observations of Galileo, but perhaps because of her gender never ascended to similar popular familiarity: Maria Sibylla Merian.
Author Kim Todd will discuss her book Chrysalis: Maria Sibylla Merian and the Secrets of Metamorphosis which "restores Merian to her rightful place in the history of science, taking us from golden-age Amsterdam to the Surinam tropics to modern laboratories where Merian’s insights fuel new approaches to both ecology and genetics."
"At the age of fifty, Merian sailed from Europe to the New World on a solo scientific expedition to study insect metamorphosis—an unheard-of journey for any naturalist at that time, much less a woman," says Todd.
The talk will begin at 7:30 p.m. at Bartow-Pell Mansion Museum, 895 Shore Rd., Bronx, NY. Registration is preferred, call 718-885-1461 for information. Admission is $10 for adults; $7 seniors and students; members free.
