A culture of curiosity
Uiterlijk 14 november in huis
This book reveals the eighteenth-century home as a site of emergence for science. By rejecting the limiting associations of ‘domestic life’, this book re-imagines a culture of enquiry populated by apprentices and housewives as much as Fellows of the Royal Society.
A culture of curiosity reveals how the home was an environment uniquely conducive to scientific enquiry in the eighteenth-century British world. Drawing on diverse manuscript sources from household accounts to life writing, the author shows how scientific practices grew from the conditions and labour of the home. In doing so, her study challenges traditional assumptions about the ‘Enlightenment’ and illuminates a vibrant and diverse population of eighteenth-century scientists.
The book begins with an examination of the home itself, before turning to analyse domestic practices through the lives of diarists, letter-writers, collectors, star-gazers and experimenters. It explores what scientific enquiry meant to these people and considers the ramifications of their activities for larger histories of intellectual life. These fascinating sources reveal the way little-known scientists constructed their own investigative authority, staking claim to enquiry as a facet of personal identity.
A culture of curiosity offers an intellectual history from below. The findings suggest that lower-status scientists were not just ignored: their work was also misunderstood with far-reaching consequences. The book therefore argues for a decisive break with dualist framings of knowledge-making, which serve to distort interpretation of intellectual culture at large. By rejecting the limiting associations of ‘domestic life’, this book re-imagines a culture of enquiry populated as much by apprentices and housewives as by elite Fellows of the Royal Society.
This study explores the practice of scientific enquiry as it took place in the eighteenth-century home. While histories of science have identified the genteel household as an important site for scientific experiment, they have tended to do so via biographies of important men of science. Using a wide range of historical source material, from household accounts and inventories to letters and print culture, this book investigates the tools within reach of early modern householders in their search for knowledge. It considers the under-explored question of the home as a site of knowledge production and does so by viewing scientific enquiry as one of many interrelated domestic practices. It shows that knowledge production and consumption were necessary facets of domestic life and that the eighteenth-century home generated practices that were integral to ‘Enlightenment’ enquiry.
An electronic edition of this book is freely available under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND) licence.
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Prijs:
Taal: en
Bindwijze: Hardcover
Oorspronkelijke releasedatum: 25 juli 2023
Aantal pagina's: 264
Hoofdauteur: Leonie Hannan
Hoofduitgeverij: Manchester University Press
Product breedte: 138 mm
Product hoogte: 16 mm
Product lengte: 216 mm
Studieboek: Nee
Verpakking breedte: 138 mm
Verpakking hoogte: 16 mm
Verpakking lengte: 216 mm
Verpakkingsgewicht: 467 g
EAN: 9781526153036