Disgust and Parasites in Nineteenth-Century Science and Fiction

2021 ◽  
pp. 168-186
Author(s):  
Justyna Jajszczok
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Century Science

Siren canora: the mermaid and the mythical in late nineteenth-century science

2008 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
H. BRINK-ROBY
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Evolutionary Theory ◽  
Focus Of Attention ◽  
British Association ◽  
Social Boundaries ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
Darwinian Theory ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Century Science

This paper argues that, for a number of naturalists and lay commentators in the second half of the nineteenth century, evolutionary – especially Darwinian – theory gave new authority to mythical creatures. These writers drew on specific elements of evolutionary theory to assert the existence of mermaids, dragons and other fabulous beasts. But mythological creatures also performed a second, often contrapositive, argumentative function; commentators who rejected evolution regularly did so by dismissing these creatures. Such critics agreed that Darwin's theory legitimized the mythological animal, but they employed this legitimization to undermine the theory itself. The mermaid, in particular, was a focus of attention in this mytho-evolutionary debate, which ranged from the pages of Punch to the lecture halls of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Crossing social boundaries and taking advantage of a range of venues, this debate arose in response to the indeterminate challenge of evolutionary theory. In its discussions of mermaids and dragons, centaurs and satyrs, this discourse helped define that challenge, construing and constructing the meanings and implications of evolutionary theory in the decades following Darwin's publication.

scholarly journals Women peers in the scientific realm: Sarah Bowdich (Lee)'s expert collaborations with Georges Cuvier, 1825–33

2014 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 37-51 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mary Orr
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
West Africa ◽  
Early Death ◽  
Women In Science ◽  
Georges Cuvier ◽  
Century Science

The accepted rule for women contributing to nineteenth-century science before 1851 was that they could play only secondary roles in its production and authorship—as translators, illustrators, popularizers—and these by virtue of kinship or marriage to eminent scientists in the field or the laboratory. Sarah Bowdich (Lee) (1791–1856) presents an important amendment to this rule. As an explorer of West Africa on an equal scientific footing with her husband, and then a writer of science independently after his early death, she had other key roles as Georges Cuvier's cross-Channel scientific collaborator and as his first biographer. This article investigates and reframes Sarah's many individual achievements in science and its writing, to examine the larger questions of her case. How were her publications and ‘uneasy career’ in science possible? Can research on women in science today find inspiration in her example?

scholarly journals Skin, Clothing, and Dwelling

2016 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 281-298 ◽  
Author(s):  
Didem Ekici
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Environmental Performance ◽  
High Performance ◽  
Architectural History ◽  
Architectural Theory ◽  
And Linguistics ◽  
Century Science

Gottfried Semper is often credited with originating the concept of the building as skin in architectural theory, but an alternative trajectory of this idea can be found in the mid-nineteenth-century science of hygiene. In Skin, Clothing, and Dwelling: Max von Pettenkofer, the Science of Hygiene, and Breathing Walls, Didem Ekici explores the affinity of skin, clothing, and dwelling in nineteenth-century German thinking, focusing on a marginal figure in architectural history, physician Max von Pettenkofer (1818–1901), the “father of experimental hygiene.” Pettenkofer's concept of clothing and dwelling as skins influenced theories of architecture that emphasized the environmental performance of the architectural envelope. This article examines Pettenkofer's writings and contemporary works on hygiene, ethnology, Kulturgeschichte (cultural history), and linguistics that linked skin, clothing, and dwelling. From nineteenth-century “breathing walls” to today's high-performance envelopes, theories of the building as a regulating membrane are a testament to the unsung legacy of Pettenkofer and the science of hygiene.

William Barton Rogers and the Southern Sieve: Revisiting Science, Slavery, and Higher Learning in the Old South

2005 ◽  
Vol 45 (1) ◽  
pp. 18-37 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. J. Angulo
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Higher Learning ◽  
Massachusetts Institute Of Technology ◽  
University Of Virginia ◽  
Educational Thought ◽  
Nineteenth Century America ◽  
Technological Institutes ◽  
Institute Of Technology ◽  
The University ◽  
Century Science

William Barton Rogers, conceptual founder of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, pursued two interrelated careers in nineteenth-century America: one centered on his activities in science and the other on his higher educational reform efforts. His scientific peers knew him as a geologist and natural philosopher, director of the first geological survey of Virginia, author of over one hundred publications in science, and promoter of professionalization. His colleagues in higher education, meanwhile, thought of him as the reform-minded professor at the College of William and Mary and the University of Virginia, who later left the South and established one of America's first technological institutes. Comparatively little has been written about either of these areas of Rogers's life and career. We know much more about the scientific and educational thought of such figures as Louis Agassiz at Harvard, Benjamin Silliman at Yale, Joseph Henry at Princeton, and Alexander Dallas Bache at the helm of the Coast Survey. The literature on Rogers, by comparison, has offered little insight into his life and even less about his relationship to broader developments in nineteenth-century science and higher learning.

VI. The Royal Society and the Government Grant: Notes on the Administration of Scientific Research, 1849–191

1971 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 323-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. M. Macleod
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Royal Society ◽  
Scientific Research ◽  
Scientific Societies ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Government ◽  
Support Of Research ◽  
Public Money ◽  
Government Grant ◽  
Century Science

The development of government participation in the support of research is one of the most significant characteristics of nineteenth-century science. As public money became available for science, the social framework of research underwent a profound transformation. This process of transformation is not easy to define, but the response of scientific societies and institutions sometimes provides significant clues.

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