The expanding interest in book history over recent years has heralded the coming together of an interdisciplinary research community drawing scholars from a variety of literary, historical and cultural studies. Moreover, with a growing body of literature, the field is becoming increasingly visible on a wider scale, not least through the existence of the Society for the History of Authorship, Readership and Publishing (SHARP), with its newly founded journal Book History. Within the history of science, however, there remains not a (...) little scepticism concerning the practical value of such an approach. It is often dismissed as an intellectual fad or as an enterprise which is illuminating but ultimately peripheral, rather than being valued as an approach which can offer major new insights within the field. This is no doubt in part because much of the most innovative work in history of science over recent years has been carried out by historians anxious to get away from an earlier overemphasis on printed sources. Eager to correct a profoundly unsocial history of ideas, usually rooted in texts, historians have looked increasingly to both the practices and the material culture of science. In such a context, a renewed focus on the history of books sometimes seems like a retrograde step, especially given the common misidentification of ‘books’ with ‘texts’. On the contrary, however, it is just such a twin emphasis on practices and material culture which also characterizes the new book history. Indeed, to the question ‘what is book history for?’ we might answer that its object is to reintroduce social actors, engaged in a variety of practices with respect to material objects, into a history in which books have too often been understood merely as disembodied texts, the meaning of which is defined by singular, uniquely creative authors, and is transparent to readers. (shrink)

ArgumentSeveral recent works in sociology examine the manufacture of public identities through the notion of celebrity. This paper explores the imagery of Charles Darwin as a nineteenth-century scientific celebrity by comparing the public character deliberately manufactured by Darwin and his friends with images constructed by the public as represented here by caricatures in humorous magazines of the era. It is argued that Darwin’s outward persona drew on a subtle tension between public and private. The boundaries between public and private were (...) blurred by the ritual of Darwin “showing” himself in the flesh, either at home to visitors or, more rarely, on public occasions. The reputation for privacy and illness that he built up added materially to this public face. By contrast, caricatures tended to depict him as an ape. These apish representations played a significant role in associating Darwin, rather than any other thinker, with the notion of evolution, and in creating an alternative public persona over which he had no direct control. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This essay offers a chronological survey of the range of songs and musical productions inspired by Darwin and his theory since they entered the public sphere some 150 years ago. It draws on an unusual set of historical materials, including illustrated sheet music, lyrics and librettos, wax cylinder recordings, vinyl records, and video recordings located in digital and sound archives and on the Internet. It also offers a characterization of the varied genres and a literary analysis of the forms (...) as a way of understanding the diverse audiences engaging, and indeed “entertaining,” Darwin and the implications of his theory. It argues that the engagement with Darwin and his celebrated theory is far more creative than has been appreciated and recommends that historians of science further explore Darwin and his theory as embodied in a fuller range of cultural expressions. This will lead to an understanding of Darwin's “iconic” status that draws on a fuller range of human sensory experience and that also enables us to appreciate his—and his theory's—enduring power to engage the human imagination. (shrink)

The history of science is more than the history of scientists. This essay argues that various modern “publics” should be counted as belonging within an enlarged vision of who constitutes the “scientific community”—and describes how the history of science could be important for understanding their experiences. It gives three examples of how natural knowledge-making happens in vernacular contexts: Victorian Britain's publishing experiments in “popular science” as effective literary strategies for communicating to lay and specialist readers; twentieth-century American science museums as (...) important and contested sites for conveying both scientific ideas and ideas about scientific practice; and contemporary mass-mediated images of the “ideal” scientist as providing counternarratives to received professional scientific norms. Finally, it suggests how humanistic knowledge might help both scientists and historians grapple more effectively with contemporary challenges presented by science in public spheres. By studying the making and elaboration of scientific knowledge within popular culture, historians of science can provide substantively grounded insights into the relations between the public and professionals. (shrink)