Synopses & Reviews
Founded around 1700 by a group of German Lutherans known as Pietists, the Halle Orphanage became the institutional headquarters of a universal seminar that still stands largely intact today.and#160; It was the base of an educational, charitable, and scientific community and consisted of an elite school for the sons of noblemen; schools for the sons of artisans, soldiers, and preachers; a hospital; an apothecary; a bookshop; a botanical garden; and a cabinet of curiosity containing architectural models,
naturalia, and scientific instruments. Yet, its reputation as a Pietist enclave inhabited largely by young people has prevented the organization from being taken seriously as a kind of scientific academyand#151;even though, Kelly Joan Whitmer shows, this is precisely what it was.and#160;
The Halle Orphanage as Scientific Community calls into question a long-standing tendency to view German Pietists as anti-science and anti-Enlightenment, arguing that these tendencies have drawn attention away from what was actually going on inside the orphanage. Whitmer shows how the orphanageand#8217;s identity as a scientific community hinged on its promotion of philosophical eclecticism as a tool for assimilating perspectives and observations and working to perfect oneand#8217;s abilities to observe methodically. Because of the link between eclecticism and observation, Whitmer reveals, those teaching and training in Halleand#8217;s Orphanage contributed to the transformation of scientific observation and its related activities in this period.
Review
and#8220;In this beautifully crafted study of francophone natural history in the Enlightenment, Terrall draws back the curtain on the intertwined lives and practices of the naturalists, much as they drew the curtain on the intimate lives of the insects, birds, and other animals they observed so obsessively. She ingeniously exploits every scrap of evidence to show us how science was conducted in field and foyer, with magnifying glass and sketchbook, in domestic circles and in endless exchanges of letters and specimens. The book is packed with examples of the exquisitely detailed observations at which the naturalists excelled, both in word and image. But Terrall also illuminates the grander themes of Enlightenment science, provocatively blurring the boundaries between observation and experiment, home and academy, natural philosophy and natural history.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;Catching Nature in the Act offers a fascinating and compelling account of what it meant to practice natural history in the eighteenth century. Rand#233;aumur was one of the most disciplined and tireless advocates of the spirit of observation in the age of the French Enlightenment, and this vividly rendered study brings to life the world of this important mathematician turned naturalist, whose contributions help to explain why the eighteenth century was the age in which natural history became a science for society.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;In this wonderful book, Terrall captures the skill, invention, and obsessive passion of the eighteenth-century naturalists, uncovering their world with the same attention that they used in exploring the unexpected corners of nature. The result is a new picture of the boundaries of knowledge in the Enlightenment and a fresh appreciation of the challenges of close observation in science.and#8221;
Review
and#8220;In this insightful study of the French naturalist Renand#233;-Antoine Ferchault de Rand#233;aumur and his circle, Terrall restores natural history to its proper place in the history of early eighteenth-century science. For Rand#233;aumur and his collaborators, natural history was not opposed to physics; rather, both were inspired by the same problem-solving spirit. Terrall offers an exemplary reconstruction of the techniques that naturalists devised to carefully observe insects, polyps, chickens, and other forms of animal life, and shows us how those observations, in turn, helped address big questions about generation, instinct, and the nature of life.and#8221;
Review
"Guerrini ably shows how anatomy emerged as a science within the institutional and courtly spaces of Louis XIV's France. Her beautifully illustrated and richly woven account explores the relationship between the emerging fashion for dissection and the mechanical philosophy, showing how and why dead bodies were enrolled into the wider transformation of European learning in the seventeenth century. Navigating between the pan-European Republic of Letters which made and disseminated new anatomical knowledge, and the promise and constraints of courtly patronage, Guerrini displays an assured grasp of her subject."
Review
Eminently readable. . . . Mary Terrall strikes a fine balance between description and explanation, enriching compelling analyses with fascinating anecdotes.
Review
"Modernism takes many forms; what many of us thought was a credit to Pietism of the Franke school turns out to be an amalgam of differentiated Enlightenment thought. I strongly recommend reading this book and rethinking the issues."
Review
"A meticulously researched and beautifully written account of the observational and experimental practice of natural history during the first half of the eighteenth century in France. . . . just as Rand#233;aumur gave his readers the means to see nature differently, Terrall transforms our picture of natural history with this superb and thoroughly absorbing book."
Review
andquot;Guerriniandrsquo;s research has uncovered a wealth of information on the key figures of the time and their endeavors, from the early contacts among Jean Pecquet, Adrien Auzout, and Blaise Pascal, to the lecturing style of Joseph-Guichard Duverney. The Courtiersandrsquo; Anatomists provides by far the most detailed account of the French anatomistsandrsquo; researches, relying on a subtle and far-reaching analysis of extensive manuscript sources ranging from the reports of the French Acadandeacute;mie to Duverneyandrsquo;s handwritten notes.andquot;
Review
andquot;The history of seventeenth-century French science has suffered considerable neglect. Both the richness and the complexity of Guerriniandrsquo;s The Courtiersandrsquo; Anatomists suggest why this is so: the context she explores requires both a mastery of the intellectual tradition throughout history and a deep familiarity with the sciences and scientific practices across Europe. Guerrini deftly weaves a complex history of many interconnected traditions, grounded in French professional and familial networks, court practices, and patronage. Thoroughly incorporating the natural sciences into the Scientific Revolution, The Courtiersandrsquo; Anatomists offers an important amplification of our understanding of scientific practices in the early modern period.andquot;
Review
andquot;Whitmer approaches Halleand#39;s orphanage as a scientific institution, placing it at the center of the early German Enlightenment. In doing so, she tells a vital and largely neglected story that fundamentally challenges common notions about the divide between the scientific and the sacred in the early modern era. This is a fascinating book with unexpected implications for the present.andquot;
Review
andquot;Should be considered essential reading for historians of science, but Terrallandrsquo;s narrative style and storytelling ability will make it appeal to a much broader audience.andquot;
Review
andquot;A lively narrative, where members of what we call today the and#39;scientific networkand#39; of naturalists have the spotlight, and where a large place is reserved for the story of the--at times highly amusing--experiments conducted by the learned jack of all trades and his followers.andquot;
Review
andquot;By underscoring the virtues of eclecticism and its Pietist roots, Whitmer has taken discussion of the early relationship between science and religion to a new level. . . . Via meticulous scholarship and fabulous illustrations, she explores, with nuance, how religious and intellectual energies intertwined in ways that galvanized mathematical practice. By highlighting the interplay among individual beliefs, actions, and scientific achievements, her book resuscitates the careers of such understudied figures as Francke, Wolff, and Leibniz in history of science scholarship. Readers curious about the evolution of scientific culture should cherish this bookandrsquo;s revelatory spotlight on an important niche in the Enlightenment.andquot;
Synopsis
Observation is the most pervasive and fundamental practice of all the modern sciences, both natural and human. Its instruments include not only the naked senses but also tools such as the telescope and microscope, the questionnaire, the photographic plate, the notebook, the glassed-in beehive, and myriad other ingenious inventions designed to make the invisible visible, the evanescent permanent, the abstract concrete. Yet observation has almost never been considered as an object of historical inquiry in itself. This wide-ranging collection offers the first examination of the history of scientific observation in its own right, as both epistemic category and scientific practice.
Histories of Scientific Observation features engaging episodes drawn from across the spectrum of the natural and human sciences, ranging from meteorology, medicine, and natural history to economics, astronomy, and psychology. The contributions spotlight how observers have scrutinized everythingand#8212;from seaweed to X-ray radiation, household budgets to the emotionsand#8212;with ingenuity, curiosity, and perseverance verging on obsession. This book makes a compelling case for the significance of the long, surprising, and epistemologically significant history of scientific observation, a history full of innovations that have enlarged the possibilities of perception, judgment, and reason.
Synopsis
Natural history in the eighteenth century was at once diffuse, because it found its subject matter everywhere and anywhere, and intensely focused, because its practitioners amassed minute and seemingly inconsequential details of structure or function in nature. Its practitioners put enormous time and effort into observing, cultivating, chasing, collecting, dissecting, preserving, drawing, and describing all manner of creatures (and plants, fossils, and rocks). By bringing her central figureand#151;the definitive authority on natural history in the middle decades of the eighteenth century, Renand#233;-Antoine Ferchault de Rand#233;aumur (1683-1757)and#151;and his many correspondents, assistants, and collaborators to life, Mary Terrall reveals that their daily practices also incorporated all kinds of experimental techniques and strategies. She argues that the common characterization of natural history as either classification or anatomical description misrepresents the core activities and motivations of naturalists who studied animals. This book vividly reconstructs the working relationships among these naturalists that made their science possible. Terrall situates them in everyday lives and households, showing them at work in their homes, gardens, museums, and laboratories. Essential reading for historians of science and early modern Europe,
Catching Nature in the Act defines and excavates a dynamic field of francophone natural history that has been inadequately mined and understood to date.
Synopsis
The Courtiers' Anatomists is about dead bodies and live animals in Louis XIV's Paris--and the surprising links between them. Examining the practice of seventeenth-century anatomy, Anita Guerrini reveals how anatomy and natural history were connected through animal dissection and vivisection. Driven by an insatiable curiosity, Parisian scientists, with the support of the king, dissected hundreds of animals from the royal menageries and the streets of Paris. Guerrini is the first to tell the story of Joseph-Guichard Duverney, who performed violent, riot-inducing dissections of both animal and human bodies before the king at Versailles and in front of hundreds of spectators at the King's Garden in Paris. At the Paris Academy of Sciences, meanwhile, Claude Perrault, with the help of Duverneyand#8217;s dissections, edited two folios in the 1670s filled with lavish illustrations by court artists of exotic royal animals.
Through the stories of Duverney and Perrault, as well as those of Marin Cureau de la Chambre, Jean Pecquet, and Louis Gayant, The Courtiers' Anatomists explores the relationships between empiricism and theory, human and animal, as well as the origins of the natural history museum and the relationship between science and other cultural activities, including art, music, and literature.
Synopsis
Founded by a group of German Lutherans known as Pietists in 1696, Halleand#8217;s Orphanage became the centerpiece of a campus comprised of an elite school for the sons of noblemen; schools for the sons of artisans, soldiers, and preachers; a hospital; an apothecary; a bookshop; a botanical garden; and a cabinet of curiosity containing architectural models, naturalia, and scientific instruments. It was closely affiliated with the newly founded University of Halle and forged lasting connections with Tsar Peter the Great. Later it became the headquarters of the worldand#8217;s first Protestant mission to India. Yet, due to the Orphanageand#8217;s reputation as a Pietist enclave inhabited largely by young people (hardly the gentleman savants associated with the periodand#8217;s scientific academies and societies), the Orphanage has not been taken seriously as a scientific community. Drawing on an assortment of materials from the Orphanageand#8217;s archive, Kelly J. Whitmer is the first to show how those involved with Halle as teachers and pupils worked together to interrogate natural processes by refining a range of experimental and observational proceduresand#151;and took the new skills they had acquired into the world. In doing so, she supports the bold claim that early modern philanthropic practices were dedicated to making and circulating knowledge. Whitmer argues specifically that Halle, the first model community built to encourage benevolent habits, ought to be understood as part of pan-European efforts to hone experimental techniques. This is an exciting new way to conceive of objectivity and experiment inand#160;the early Enlightenment, for it calls into question a longstanding tendency to view German Pietists as anti-reason and anti-science.
Synopsis
The Courtiersand#8217; Anatomists is about dead bodies and live animals in Louis XIVand#8217;s Paris. By exploring the practice of seventeenth-century anatomy, Anita Guerrini reveals how animals were central to collecting, describing, and classifyingand#151;natural historyand#151;and how anatomy and natural history were linked through animal dissection and vivisection. She looks at the early modern animal project, and particularly at Joseph-Guichard Duverney and Claude Perrault, in the context of the court, the city of Paris, and burgeoning audiences for natural history. The Academy and the Kingand#8217;s Garden were the two main sites in Paris for the performance of natural history, and much of the Scientific Revolution in France played itself out in these two public institutions. Fascinating stories are culled in The Courtiersand#8217; Anatomists to explore the relationships between empiricism and theory, human and animal, the origins of the natural history museum and modern science, and the relationship between science and other cultural activities including art, music, and literature. This book will be warmly welcomed by historians of science, medicine, and France, as well as by early modernists and many others in the growing field of animal studies.
Synopsis
Imagine the twentieth century without photography and film. Its history would be absent of images that defined historical moments and generations. Today such a history feels insubstantial and imprecise, even unscientific. And yet photographic technology was not always a necessary precondition for the accurate documentation of history. The documentary impulse that emerged in the late nineteenth century combined the power of science and industry with a particularly utopian (and often imperialistic) belief in the capacity of photography and film to capture the world visually, order it, and render it useful for future generations. This book is about the material and social life of photographs and films made in the scientific quest to document the world. It explores their creation and production as well as the collecting practices of librarians, archivists, and corporations. Together, the chapters of Documenting the World call into question the canonical qualities of the authored, the singular, and the valuable image, and transgress the divides separating the still photograph and the moving image, as well as the analogue and the digital. They also definitively overturn the traditional role of photographs and films in historical studies as passive illustrations.
About the Author
Anita Guerrini is Horning Professor in the Humanities and professor of history in the School of History, Philosophy, and Religion at Oregon State University. She is the author of Experimenting with Humans and Animals: From Galen to Animal Rights and Obesity and Depression in the Enlightenment: The Life and Times of George Cheyne.
Table of Contents
A Note on Names, Dates, and Other Matters
Abbreviations Used in the Notes
List of Illustrations
Introduction
Chapter 1 Anatomists and Courtiers
Chapter 2 The Anatomical Origins of the Paris Academy of Sciences
Chapter 3 The Animal Projects of the Paris Academy of Sciences
Chapter 4 The Histoire des animaux
Chapter 5 Perrault, Duverney, and Animal Mechanism
Chapter 6 The Courtiersand#8217; Anatomist: Duverney at the Jardin du roi
Conclusion
Epilogue: The Afterlife of the Histoire des animaux
Acknowledgments
Notes
Bibliography
Index