Book ID: CBB157841526

The Astronomer's Chair: A Visual and Cultural History (2021)

unapi

The astronomer's observing chair as both image and object, and the story it tells about a particular kind of science and a particular view of history. The astronomer's chair is a leitmotif in the history of astronomy, appearing in hundreds of drawings, prints, and photographs from a variety of sources. Nineteenth-century stargazers in particular seemed eager to display their observing chairs—task-specific, often mechanically adjustable observatory furniture designed for use in conjunction with telescopes. But what message did they mean to send with these images? In The Astronomer's Chair, Omar W. Nasim considers these specialized chairs as both image and object, offering an original framework for linking visual and material cultures. Observing chairs, Nasim ingeniously argues, showcased and embodied forms of scientific labor, personae, and bodily practice that appealed to bourgeois sensibilities. Viewing image and object as connected parts of moral, epistemic, and visual economies of empire, Nasim shows that nineteenth-century science was represented in terms of comfort and energy, and that “manly” postures of Western astronomers at work in specialized chairs were contrasted pointedly with images of “effete” and cross-legged “Oriental” astronomers. Extending his historical analysis into the twentieth century, Nasim reexamines what he argues to be a famous descendant of the astronomer's chair: Freud's psychoanalytic couch, which directed observations not outward toward the stars but inward toward the stratified universe of the psyche. But whether in conjunction with the mind or the heavens, the observing chair was a point of entry designed for specialists that also portrayed widely held assumptions about who merited epistemic access to these realms in the first place.With more than 100 illustrations, many in color; flexibound.

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Reviewed By

Review Clifford Cunningham (2022) Review of "The Astronomer's Chair: A Visual and Cultural History". Journal of Astronomical History and Heritage (pp. 161-162). unapi

Review Ileana Chinnici (2023) Review of "The Astronomer's Chair: A Visual and Cultural History". Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences (pp. 444-444). unapi

Review Sibylle Gluch (2022) Review of "The Astronomer's Chair: A Visual and Cultural History". Journal for the History of Astronomy (pp. 505-507). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB157841526/

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Authors & Contributors
Chinnici, Ileana
Andrzej M. Sołtan
Jean-Marie Malherbe
Małgorzata Królikowska
Zampieri, Luca
Yaskell, Steven Haywood
Concepts
Astronomical observatories
Astronomy
Telescopes
Astronomers
Instruments, astronomical
Cosmology
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
18th century
17th century
21st century
Places
Germany
United States
France
Melbourne (Victoria, Australia)
Madagascar
Sweden
Institutions
Observatoire de Paris
Jesuits (Society of Jesus)
Mont-Blanc Observatory
Kungliga Svenska Vetenskapsakademien
Lick Observatory
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