- Department of History and Philosophy of Science
University of Cambridge
Free School Lane
Cambridge CB2 3RH
- Transnational History, History, Renaissance Studies, Book History, Art History, History of Science, and 28 moreEarly Modern History, Cultural History, Enlightenment, European History, Global History, 17th Century Dutch Republic, Early Modern Europe, Early Modern Intellectual History, History of Science and Technology, History of Collecting, Visual Studies, History of Museums, Book History (History), Eighteenth Century History, Seventeenth Century, History of the Book, History of Medicine, Collecting and Collections, Natural History, History of Natural History, History of Anatomy, Dutch History, Republic of Letters (Early Modern History), Travel Literature, Travel Writing, 16th and 17th century Dutch and Flemish Art, Visual Culture, and Intellectual and cultural historyedit
- I am professor in the history of science, techology and medicine at the University of Cambridge.edit
A Festschrift for Simon Schaffer, edited with Richard Staley.
Research Interests: History, Cultural History, Cultural Studies, History of Ideas, Early Modern History, and 15 moreMaritime History, History of Science, Enlightenment, Global Studies, History of Astronomy, Social Studies Of Science, History of scientific instruments, History of knowledge, Science Studies, Colonial History, Scientific Controversies, History of optics, Cambridge, Social History of Knowledge, and History of Physics and Technology
Entrepreneurial science is not new; business interests have strongly influenced science since the Scientific Revolution. In Commercial Visions, Dániel Margócsy illustrates that product marketing, patent litigation, and even ghostwriting... more
Entrepreneurial science is not new; business interests have strongly influenced science since the Scientific Revolution. In Commercial Visions, Dániel Margócsy illustrates that product marketing, patent litigation, and even ghostwriting pervaded natural history and medicine—the “big sciences” of the early modern era—and argues that the growth of global trade during the Dutch Golden Age gave rise to an entrepreneurial network of transnational science.
Research Interests: Visual Studies, Print Culture, Art History, Museum Studies, Early Modern History, and 25 moreBook History, Material Culture Studies, History of the Book, History of Natural History, Visual Culture, History of Science, Eighteenth Century History, Seventeenth Century, History of Museums, Taxonomy, Early Modern Europe, Natural History, Global History, Early Modern Material Culture, History of Anatomy, Book History (History), 17th Century Dutch Republic, Scientific Revolution, Visual and Cultural Studies, Material Culture, Early Modern print culture, Dutch History, Cabinets of Curiosities, Dutch Golden Age, and The History of Print
This article offers a revisionist interpretation of the early modern Republic of Letters by offering a contextual analysis of explicit mentions of the term by scholars across Europe in the period. The current historiography on the... more
This article offers a revisionist interpretation of the early modern Republic of Letters by offering a contextual analysis of explicit mentions of the term by scholars across Europe in the period. The current historiography on the Republic of Letters tends to present it as the place of friendly, solidary and democratic cooperation across national and religious boundaries. This article argues, instead, that members of the Republic of Letters conceptualised it as a battlefield of permanent warfare. Early modern scholars often compared themselves to soldiers of a hierarchically organised
army or to fighters in a civil war. It is claimed that a militarised conceptualisation of the Republic of Letters offers the opportunity to re-engage with Reinhart Koselleck’s influential Kritik und Krise. Evidence is presented from fifteenth-century Italy to early nineteenth-century Hungary.
army or to fighters in a civil war. It is claimed that a militarised conceptualisation of the Republic of Letters offers the opportunity to re-engage with Reinhart Koselleck’s influential Kritik und Krise. Evidence is presented from fifteenth-century Italy to early nineteenth-century Hungary.
Research Interests: Military History, Intellectual History, Cultural History, Early Modern History, Renaissance Studies, and 14 moreHistory of Science, Erasmus, Reformation History, Reformation Studies, Enlightenment, Social Networks (History), Early Modern Europe, Civil Society and the Public Sphere, History of Scholarship, Republic of Letters (Early Modern History), Reinhart Koselleck, Early Modern Warfare, Pierre Bayle, and History of Humanities
Research Interests: Cultural History, Visual Studies, Art History, Early Modern History, Renaissance Studies, and 15 moreHistory of Natural History, History of Science, Renaissance Art, Reformation Studies, Seventeenth Century, Early Modern Europe, Natural History, Miniature Books, Atlantic history, Visual Cultures of Science (Visual Studies), Still Life, Early Modern Art and Visual Culture, History of Botany, Huguenots, and Sixteenth Century History
This article situates the collecting practices of museums of natural history in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in dialogue with similar practices amongst societies in the Pacific by focusing on how European curators, dealers... more
This article situates the collecting practices of museums of natural history in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in dialogue with similar practices amongst societies in the Pacific by focusing on how European curators, dealers in natural history and Pacific Islanders shared a common fascination with Spondylus shells. In particular, this article examines the processes for turning Spondylus shells into unique or duplicate specimens. Spondylus shells were crucial for regulating gift and commercial exchanges in the societies of both regions. Famously, the anthropologist Bronisław Malinowski claimed that these shells were an essential element of the gift-based kula exchange, which helped him distinguish Western capitalist society from less developed societies without commercial trade. Yet Spondylus shells were also collected and exchanged as gifts amongst British and European naturalists in this period, performing the same roles as in Melanesia. In addition, such gift exchanges could only come into being thanks to the actions of commercially motivated dealers, located both in the Pacific and in Europe, who were the suppliers of these shells both to Melanesian participants in the kula and to Western natural historians and collectors. These observations call into question earlier arguments that equate modernity with the rise of commercial capitalism. It is instead claimed that commercial and gift exchanges were intricately connected and reliant on each other throughout the period, whether in the worlds of Western museums or in Pacific archipelagos. The act of turning Spondylus shells into unique or duplicate specimens was the key tool for regulating these exchanges. Looking for difference amongst a sea of similarity is a recurring theme in Vakutan thinking. 1 Here is a Spondylus shell that entered the British Museum in the nineteenth century, originally collected by the Valparaiso sailmaker Hugh Cuming somewhere in the Pacific. 2 And here are three more Spondylus shells from the same museum that Bronisław Malinowski collected in Melanesia during the First World War (Figures 1-5). 3 Now, in 2021, they are clearly not duplicates of each other: they perform different functions
Research Interests: Museum Studies, History of Economic Thought, History of Natural History, Sociology of Knowledge, History of Science, and 15 moreEconomic Anthropology, History of Anthropology, History of Sociology, Gift Giving (Economic Anthropology), 20th century (History), History of Collections, Papua New Guinea, Collecting and Collections, Pacific History, Plates and shells, Marcel Mauss, History of Globalization, Gift economy, Bronislav Malinowski, and History and Sociology of Science
The collection, processing, storage and circulation of data are fundamental element of contemporary societies. While the positivistic literature on 'data revolution' finds it essential for improving development delivery, critical data... more
The collection, processing, storage and circulation of data are fundamental element of contemporary societies. While the positivistic literature on 'data revolution' finds it essential for improving development delivery, critical data studies stress the threats of datafication. In this article, we demonstrate that datafication has been happening continuously through history, driven by political and economic pressures. We use historical examples to show how resource and personal data were extracted, accumulated and commodified by colonial empires, national governments and trade organizations, and argue that similar extractive processes are a present-day threat in the Global South. We argue that the decoupling of earlier and current datafication processes obscures the underlying, complex power dynamics of datafication. Our historical perspective shows how, once aggregated, data may become imperishable and can be appropriated for problematic purposes in the long run by both public and private entities. Using historical case studies, we challenge the current regulatory approaches that view data as a commodity and frame it instead as a mobile, non-perishable, yet ideally inalienable right of people.
Research Interests: History of Science and Technology, Development Studies, International Development, Postcolonial Studies, History of Science, and 10 moreHistory Of Information, Global History, History of Archives, History of knowledge, Global South, Colonial History, Big Data, History of Development, Global South Development, and Critical Data Studies
This article offers a new interpretation of the concept of wonder in early modern Europe by focusing on large collections. It shows that many princely Kunstkammern were located above stables, and argues that the horses downstairs and the... more
This article offers a new interpretation of the concept of wonder in early modern Europe by focusing on large collections. It shows that many princely Kunstkammern were located above stables, and argues that the horses downstairs and the curiosities upstairs performed similar roles in the courtly display of power. The size and design of stables shaped how curiosities were exhibited and viewed. These majestic buildings facilitated cursory viewing experiences of the assemblage of a great number of animals and objects. They did not necessarily encourage the detailed examination of particular and unique exhibits.
Research Interests: Art History, German History, Animal Studies, History of Science, Habsburg Studies, and 14 moreHorse culture, Early Modern Europe, Architecture in Italian Renaissance and Baroque Art, Collecting and Collections, History of knowledge, Northern Renaissance Art, History of Collecting, Cabinets of Curiosities, Museum and Heritage Studies, Early Modern Art and Visual Culture, History of Animals, late medieval and early modern history of European nobility and courts, History of Travel and Tourism, and History of Horse Riding
It is the aim of this article to put questions of maintenance and repair in the history of science and technology under scrutiny, with a special focus on technologies and methods of transportation. The history of transportation is a... more
It is the aim of this article to put questions of maintenance and repair in the history of science and technology under scrutiny, with a special focus on technologies and methods of transportation. The history of transportation is a history of trying to avoid shipwrecks and plane crashes. It is also a history of broken masts, worm-eaten hulls, the flat tires of cars, and endless delays at airports. This introductory article assesses the technological, scientific, and cultural implications of repairing and maintaining transportation networks. We argue that infrastructures for maintenance and repair played just as important a role in the history of transportation as the wharves and factories where ships, cars, trains, and airplanes were originally built. We also suggest that maintenance and repair are important sites of knowledge production, and a historical account of these practices provides a new, decentered narrative for the development of modern science and technology.
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This article examines how the reception history of Maria Sibylla Merian’s oeuvre may shed light on the role of medicine in interpreting art around 1700. The focus is on Merian’s iconic images of the pineapple, a fruit that many considered... more
This article examines how the reception history of Maria Sibylla Merian’s oeuvre may shed light on the role of medicine in interpreting art around 1700. The focus is on Merian’s iconic images of the pineapple, a fruit that many considered a potential source of disease. The years when Merian was active saw the eruption of debates over the origins of intestinal worms and the possible role of sweet fruits as carriers of the invisible eggs of these parasites. The key figures in these helminthological debates were also the interlocutors and collectors of Merian, including the physicians Richard Mead and Hans Sloane. A study of the writings of these medical professionals reveals that, for Europeans in this period, exotic fruits indicated not only the bountiful productivity of tropical nature but also its inherent dangers. Using this case study, this article therefore argues that dietetics and medicine played a key role in the interpretation of art in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when physicians had a strong presence in the world of collecting works of art.
Research Interests: Art History, Reception Studies, Early Modern History, History of Medicine, History of the Book, and 15 moreHistory of Natural History, History of Science, Eighteenth Century History, Early Modern Europe, Early Modern Science, Collecting and Collections, Visual Cultures of Science (Visual Studies), Old Master drawings, History of Collecting, Helminthology, Eighteenth Century Studies, 16th and 17th century Dutch and Flemish Art, Worms, Maria Sibylla Merian, and History of Cooking and Food Culture
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An essay on Jacques Fabien Gautier D'Agoty's Exposition anatomique des organes des sens.
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Research Interests: Visual Studies, Print Culture, Art History, Early Modern History, History of Medicine, and 10 moreActor Network Theory, Visual Culture, History of Science, History of Art, History of Anatomy, Bruno Latour, History of Printmaking, science and technology studies (STS), Early Modern Art and Visual Culture, and Andreas Vesalius
The introduction to this special issue argues that network breakdowns play an important and unacknowledged role in the shaping and emergence of scientific knowledge. It focuses on transnational scientific networks from the early modern... more
The introduction to this special issue argues that network breakdowns play an important and unacknowledged role in the shaping and emergence of scientific knowledge. It focuses on transnational scientific networks from the early modern Republic of Letters to 21st-century globalized science. It attempts to unite the disparate historiography of the early modern Republic of Letters, the literature on 20th-century globalization, and the scholarship on Actor-Network Theory. We can perceive two, seemingly contradictory, changes to scientific networks over the past four hundred years. At the level of individuals, networks have become increasing fragile, as developments in communication and transportation technologies, and the emergence of regimes of standardization and instrumentation, have made it easier both to create new constellations of people and materials, and to replace and rearrange them. But at the level of institutions, collaborations have become much more extensive and long-lived, with single projects routinely outlasting even the arc of a full scientific career. In the modern world, the strength of institutions and macro-networks often relies on ideological regimes of standardization and instrumentation that can flexibly replace elements and individuals at will.
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Research Interests: Cultural History, Economic History, Aesthetics, Philosophy of Science, Visual Studies, and 15 moreArt History, Reception Studies, Travel Writing, Early Modern History, History of Natural History, Visual Culture, History of Science, Early Modern Europe, Natural History, Travel & Tourism, Intellectual and cultural history, Travel Literature, Collecting and Collections, History of Collecting, and Cabinets of Curiosities
Two pirated editions form a vital but neglected part of the printing and reception history of the first edition of Grotius's Mare liberum.
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This article provides a listing of known copies of the first two folio editions of Andreas Vesalius' De humani corporis fabrica (1543 and 1555), revising earlier estimates. It shows that the Fabrica survives in much higher numbers than... more
This article provides a listing of known copies of the first two folio editions of Andreas Vesalius' De humani corporis fabrica (1543 and 1555), revising earlier estimates. It shows that the Fabrica survives in much higher numbers than previously reported, and has a much wider geographical distribution, as well. The authors discuss the methodologies for conducting census in the digital age, provide an estimate of the print runs, and compare the survival rate of the two folio editions. It is argued that cultural politics explains the circulation patterns and current locations of Vesalius' Fabrica. Throughout history, this luxurious atlas of anatomy could only be afforded by the wealthy, and, as a result, surviving copies tend to concentrate in areas that have traditionally been associated with the development of Western economic power structures.
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This introductory article provides an overview of the historiography of scientific secrecy from J.D. Bernal and Robert Merton to this day. It reviews how historians and sociologists of science have explored the role of secrets in... more
This introductory article provides an overview of the historiography of scientific secrecy from J.D. Bernal and Robert Merton to this day. It reviews how historians and sociologists of science have explored the role of secrets in commercial and government sponsored scientific research through the ages. Whether focusing on the medieval, early modern or modern periods, much of this historiography has conceptualized scientific secrets as valuable intellectual property that helps entrepreneurs and autocratic governments gain economic or military advantage over competitors. Following Georg Simmel and Max Weber, this article offers an alternative interpretation of secrecy as a tool to organize and to hierarchically order society. In this view, the knowledge content of secrecy is less important than its social psychological effects. The authors argue that, in many instances, entrepreneurial researchers and governments use scientific secrets as an effective tool to manipulate the beliefs of their
competitors and the larger public, and not necessarily to protect the knowledge that they hold.
competitors and the larger public, and not necessarily to protect the knowledge that they hold.
Research Interests: History, History of Science and Technology, Intellectual History, Cultural History, Sociology, and 40 moreCultural Studies, Social Theory, Sociology of Culture, Sociology of Religion, Philosophy of Science, Media Studies, Media and Cultural Studies, Historical Sociology, Intellectual Property, History of Ideas, Cultural Policy, Innovation statistics, Sociology of Knowledge, History of Science, Jurgen Habermas, Biotechnology, Nationalism, U.S. Intellectual History, Trade Secrets, History of Sociology, Media, Social History, Sociology of Science, Public Health, Intellectual and cultural history, Max Weber (Philosophy), Habermas, Georg Simmel, Polanyi, Michael, Epistemology of the Social Sciences, Max Weber, History of Secret Societies, Cultural Globalization, Copyright Law, Patent Law, Pharmaceutical Law, Secrets, Classical and Contemporary Social Theory, Historical and Comparative Sociology, and Sociology of the State
Research Interests: History of Science and Technology, Early Modern History, History of Natural History, Polish History, History of Science, and 9 more17th-Century Studies, Natural History, Protestantism, Polish Studies, Moravian (Church History), 17th century Europe, Historical Epistemology, Miracles, and Iohannes Amos Comenius
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The article is here: https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/elephants-horses-and-the-proportions-of-paradise