Science And Spectacle In The European Enlightenment

Author : Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1351901877
Total Pages : 188 pages
Book Rating : 4.71/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Science and Spectacle in the European Enlightenment written by Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-12-05 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Air-pumps, electrical machines, colliding ivory balls, coloured sparks, mechanical planetariums, magic mirrors, hot-air balloons - these are just a sample of the devices displayed in public demonstrations of science in the eighteenth century. Public and private demonstrations of natural philosophy in Europe then differed vastly from today's unadorned and anonymous laboratory experiments. Science was cultivated for a variety of purposes in many different places; scientific instruments were built and used for investigative and didactic experiments as well as for entertainment and popular shows. Between the culture of curiosities which characterized the seventeenth century and the distinction between academic and popular science that gradually emerged in the nineteenth, the eighteenth century was a period when scientific activities took place in a variety of sites, ranging from academies, and learned societies to salons and popular fairs, shops and streets. This collection of case studies describing public demonstrations in Britain, Germany, Italy and France exemplifies the wide variety of settings for scientific activities in the European Enlightenment. Filled with sparks and smells, the essays raise broader issues about the ways in which modern science established its legitimacy and social acceptability. They point to two major features of the cultures of science in the eighteenth-century: entertainment and utility. Experimental demonstrations were attended by apothecaries and craftsmen for vocational purposes. At the same time, they had to fit in with the taste of both polite society and market culture. Public demonstrations were a favourite entertainment for ladies and gentlemen and a profitable activity for instrument makers and booksellers.

Author : Stephanie O'Rourke
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1009019155
Total Pages : 273 pages
Book Rating : 4.56/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Art, Science, and the Body in Early Romanticism written by Stephanie O'Rourke and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-11-04 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can we really trust the things our bodies tell us about the world? This work reveals how deeply intertwined cultural practices of art and science questioned the authority of the human body in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Focusing on Henry Fuseli, Anne-Louis Girodet and Philippe de Loutherbourg, it argues that romantic artworks participated in a widespread crisis concerning the body as a source of reliable scientific knowledge. Rarely discussed sources and new archival material illuminate how artists drew upon contemporary sciences and inverted them, undermining their founding empiricist principles. The result is an alternative history of romantic visual culture that is deeply embroiled in controversies around electricity, mesmerism, physiognomy and other popular sciences. This volume reorients conventional accounts of romanticism and some of its most important artworks, while also putting forward a new model for the kinds of questions that we can ask about them.

Author : William Clark
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 9780226109404
Total Pages : 586 pages
Book Rating : 4.02/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Sciences in Enlightened Europe written by William Clark and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 1999-07 with total page 586 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Radically reorienting our understanding of the Enlightenment, this book explores the complex relations between "englightened" values and the making of scientific knowledge. Here monsters and automata, barometers and botanical gardens, polite academics and boisterous clubs, plans for violent wars and for universal peace, are all relocated in the landscape of enlightened Europe. The contributors show how changing forms of discipline, machinery, and instrumentation affected the emergence of new kinds of knowledge; consider how institutions of public rate taste and conversation helped provide a common frame for the study of human and nonhuman natures; and explore the regional operations of scientific culture at the geographical fringes of Europe. Covering a wide range of scientific disciplines, both in the principal European countries and in areas peripheral to Europe, the book also includes ample illustrations and an extensive bibliography. Implicated in the rise of both fascism and liberal secularism, the moral and political values that shaped the Enlightenment remain controversial today. Through careful scrutiny of how these values influenced and were influenced by the concrete practices of its sciences, this book gives us an entirely new sense of the Enlightenment. -- from back cover.

Author : Bernard Lightman
Publisher : John Wiley & Sons
ISBN 13 : 1118620747
Total Pages : 596 pages
Book Rating : 4.48/5 ( download)

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Download or read book A Companion to the History of Science written by Bernard Lightman and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2016-01-28 with total page 596 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Wiley Blackwell Companion to the History of Science is a single volume companion that discusses the history of science as it is done today, providing a survey of the debates and issues that dominate current scholarly discussion, with contributions from leading international scholars. Provides a single-volume overview of current scholarship in the history of science edited by one of the leading figures in the field Features forty essays by leading international scholars providing an overview of the key debates and developments in the history of science Reflects the shift towards deeper historical contextualization within the field Helps communicate and integrate perspectives from the history of science with other areas of historical inquiry Includes discussion of non-Western themes which are integrated throughout the chapters Divided into four sections based on key analytic categories that reflect new approaches in the field

Author : Agusti Nieto-Galan
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317277937
Total Pages : 270 pages
Book Rating : 4.34/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Science in the Public Sphere written by Agusti Nieto-Galan and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-10 with total page 270 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Science in the Public Sphere presents a broad yet detailed picture of the history of science popularization from the Renaissance to the twenty-first century. Global in focus, it provides an original theoretical framework for analysing the political load of science as an instrument of cultural hegemony and giving a voice to expert and lay protagonists throughout history. Organised into a series of thematic chapters spanning diverse periods and places, this book covers subjects such as the representations of science in print, the media, classrooms and museums, orthodox and heterodox practices, the intersection of the history of science with the history of technology, and the ways in which public opinion and scientific expertise have influenced and shaped one another across the centuries. It concludes by introducing the "participatory turn" of the twenty-first century, a new paradigm of science popularization and a new way of understanding the construction of knowledge. Highly illustrated throughout and covering the recent historiographical scholarship on the subject, this book is valuable reading for students, historians, science communicators, and all those interested in the history of science and its relationship with the public sphere.

Author : Mark A. Waddell
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108425283
Total Pages : 231 pages
Book Rating : 4.85/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Magic, Science, and Religion in Early Modern Europe written by Mark A. Waddell and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2021-01-28 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An accessible new exploration of the vibrant world of early modern Europe through a focus on magic, science, and religion.

Author : Faidra Papanelopoulou
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317077911
Total Pages : 351 pages
Book Rating : 4.16/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Popularizing Science and Technology in the European Periphery, 1800–2000 written by Faidra Papanelopoulou and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-03-23 with total page 351 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The vast majority of European countries have never had a Newton, Pasteur or Einstein. Therefore a historical analysis of their scientific culture must be more than the search for great luminaries. Studies of the ways science and technology were communicated to the public in countries of the European periphery can provide a valuable insight into the mechanisms of the appropriation of scientific ideas and technological practices across the continent. The contributors to this volume each take as their focus the popularization of science in countries on the margins of Europe, who in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries may be perceived to have had a weak scientific culture. A variety of scientific genres and forums for presenting science in the public sphere are analysed, including botany and women, teaching and popularizing physics and thermodynamics, scientific theatres, national and international exhibitions, botanical and zoological gardens, popular encyclopaedias, popular medicine and astronomy, and genetics in the press. Each topic is situated firmly in its historical and geographical context, with local studies of developments in Spain, Portugal, Italy, Hungary, Denmark, Belgium and Sweden. Popularizing Science and Technology in the European Periphery provides us with a fascinating insight into the history of science in the public sphere and will contribute to a better understanding of the circulation of scientific knowledge.

Author : Clare Wilkinson
Publisher : Manchester University Press
ISBN 13 : 178499782X
Total Pages : 347 pages
Book Rating : 4.23/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Creative research communication written by Clare Wilkinson and published by Manchester University Press. This book was released on 2016-05-01 with total page 347 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a theoretically grounded introduction to new and emerging approaches to public engagement and research communication.

Author : Martin Willis
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317321855
Total Pages : 308 pages
Book Rating : 4.59/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Vision, Science and Literature, 1870-1920 written by Martin Willis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2015-07-22 with total page 308 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book explores the Victorian concept of vision across scientific and cultural forms. Willis charts the characterization of vision through four organizing principles – small, large, past and future – to arrive at a Victorian conception of what vision was. Willis then explores how this Victorian vision influenced twentieth-century ways of seeing.

Author : Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth
Publisher : Routledge
ISBN 13 : 1317057341
Total Pages : 218 pages
Book Rating : 4.45/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Selling Science in the Age of Newton written by Jeffrey R. Wigelsworth and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-04-01 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Selling Science in the Age of Newton explores an often ignored avenue in the popularization of science. It is an investigation of how advertisements in London newspapers (from approximately 1687 to 1727) enticed consumers to purchase products relating to science: books, lecture series, and instruments. London's readers were among the first in Europe to be exposed to regular newspapers and the advertisements contained in them. This occurred just as science began to captivate the nation's imagination due, in part, to Isaac Newton's rising popularity following the publication of his Principia (1687). This unique moment allows us to see how advertising helped shape the initial public reception of science. This book fills a substantial gap in our understanding of science and the culture in which it developed by examining the medium of advertising and its function in the discourse of both early-modern science and commerce. It answers questions such as: what happens to science once it is a commodity; how are consumers tempted to purchase science amidst a sea of other commodities; how is the reading public encouraged to give social acceptance to facts of nature; and how did marketing campaigns craft newspapers readers into a source of validation for the items of science advertised? In an age where the production of scientific knowledge increasingly relied upon sales to many rather than the endorsement of a single wealthy patron, marketing was the key to success.