[Athena] publication

[ldolza AT club-internet.fr]

Title: Flashmail

Pour information, nouvelle publication :

Science and Spectacle in the European Enlightenment, sous la
direction de Christine Blondel et Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent,
Aldershot, Ashgate, 2008.

Infos éditeur :

 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.

    Contents :
    - Introduction : a science full of shocks, sparks and smells, Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent and Christine Blondel ;
    - The laboratory, the workshop, and the theatre of experiment, Larry Stewart ;
    - Technology, curiosity and utility in France and England in the 18th century, Liliane Pérez ;
    - Amusing physics, Jessica Riskin ;
    - Experimental physics in Enlightenment Paris : the practice of popularization in urban culture, Michael R. Lynn ;
    - Domestic spectacles : electrical instruments between business and conversation, Paola Bertucci ;
    - The sale of shocks and sparks : itinerant electricians in German Enlightenment, Oliver Hochadel ;
    - Between commerce and philanthropy : chemistry courses in 18th-century Paris, Christine Lehman ;
    - Joseph Priestley and the chemical sublime in British public science, Jan Golinski ;
    - Chemistry on stage : G.F. Rouelle and the theatricality of 18th-century chemistry, Lissa Roberts ;
    - Honoré Fragonard, anatomical virtuoso, Jonathan Simon ;
    - Index.

About the Editor : Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent is Professor of
History and Philosophy of Science at the Université Paris-X Nanterre,
France. Christine Blondel is Researcher at CNRS, Paris, France.

En ligne : http://www.ashgate.com/default.aspx?page=637&calcTitle=1&title_id=10349&edition_id=11003