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Article ID: CBB271111385

Brightening Biochemistry: Humor, Identity, and Scientific Work at the Sir William Dunn Institute of Biochemistry, 1923–1931 (2020)

Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Volume: 111
Issue: 3
Pages: 493-514

DOI: 10.1086/710666

URI: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/710666

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Ethnography Science and culture Jokes; humor Biochemistry 20th century, early Cambridge University Sir William Dunn Institute of Biochemistry

In the 1920s, scientists at the University of Cambridge’s Sir William Dunn Institute of Biochemistry made major contributions to the emerging discipline of biochemistry while also devoting considerable time and energy to the production of a humor journal entitled Brighter Biochemistry. Although humor is frequently regarded as peripheral to the work of science, the journal provides an opportunity to understand how it contributes to the social infrastructure of scientific communities as modern workplaces. Taking methodological cues from cultural history, ethnography, and humor studies, this essay conducts a close and contextual reading of Brighter Biochemistry. This reading demonstrates how humor served as a central means through which members of the Dunn confronted workplace issues, including creating cooperative work teams, responding to gender discrimination, addressing funding anxiety, and defining professional identity. These conclusions provide a new perspective on the well-documented history of the Dunn and also offer a model for how historians of science can approach humor when its traces are encountered in other settings.

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