Book ID: CBB358382058

The Form of Becoming: Embryology and the Epistemology of Rhythm, 1760--1830 (2017)

unapi

Wellmann, Janina (Author)
Sturge, Kate (Translator)


Sturge, Kate
Zone Books


Publication Date: 2017
Physical Details: 424 pages
Language: English

An examination of the constitutive role of rhythm and movement in the visualization of developing life.In The Form of Becoming Janina Wellmann offers an innovative understanding of the emergence around 1800 of the science of embryology and a new notion of development, one based on the epistemology of rhythm. She argues that between 1760 and 1830, the concept of rhythm became crucial to many fields of knowledge, including the study of life and living processes. She juxtaposes the history of rhythm in music theory, literary theory, and philosophy with the concurrent turn in biology toward understanding the living world in terms of rhythmic patterns, rhythmic movement, and rhythmic representations. Common to all these fields was their view of rhythm as a means of organizing time -- and of ordering the development of organisms. With The Form of Becoming, Wellmann, a historian of science, has written the first systematic study of visualization in embryology. Embryological development circa 1800 was imagined through the pictorial technique of the series, still prevalent in the field today. Tracing the origins of the developmental series back to seventeenth-century instructional graphics for military maneuvers, dance, and craft work, The Form of Becoming reveals the constitutive role of rhythm and movement in the visualization of developing life.

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Reviewed By

Review Laura Nuño de la Rosa (2021) Review of "The Form of Becoming: Embryology and the Epistemology of Rhythm, 1760--1830". History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences (p. 41). unapi

Review Beatrice Steinert (2019) Review of "The Form of Becoming: Embryology and the Epistemology of Rhythm, 1760--1830". Journal of the History of Biology (pp. 493-495). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB358382058/

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Authors & Contributors
Schmitt, Stéphane
Murray, Isabel
Hufnagel, Henning
Jäger, Frank
Wanlin, Nicolas
Goldstein, Amanda Jo
Concepts
Biology
Embryology
Cytology
Reproduction
Scientific illustration
Science and art
Time Periods
19th century
18th century
20th century, early
20th century
Enlightenment
20th century, late
Places
Germany
United States
Netherlands
Italy
Great Britain
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