My name is Cornelia Lambert and we met several years ago at the SCSECS meeting in Tulsa. Sorry I am writing you this way, but I have’t been able to find an email for you.

At SCESECS I gave a paper on Robert Owen and am working on my dissertation about his place in Scottish history — I can’t remember if you were in my session or not. I know I heard yours, because I remember your work on Macpherson and was less dismissive than some of the fogeys in the session, as I recall!

I was writing to ask you what, if any, resources you are using to ask questions about truth claims in 18th C Scotland. I’ve been using Budge’s edited volume on _Romantic Empiricism_ and a volume called _The Ruins
of Experience_ to take on the notion of what constituted proof in this time period. I thought you might have some advice. I’m arguing that Owen’s presentation of his utopian community failed in some respects (for some audiences) because of different ideas about what his public demonstrations meant or proved.

Let me know if you have any ideas………. no rush. I know you’re busy these days with the new little one.

In other news, I have found that soda takes crappy when I go off of it for a month or so (the longest I’ve ever been off). I’ve been off “real” sodas for several years but go on temporary breaks from diet versions every time I’m in the UK because they don’t taste good over there. When I get back I’m initially excited that soda tastes bad, because then perhaps I’ll give it up. But I’m sitting here with a 44oz thirst buster as we speak, so you see how well I carry that out.

Congrats on the baby.

Cornelia Lambert
University of Oklahoma
Department of History of Science