IsisCB Explore

Thesis ID: CBB101715752

Gendering Scientific Discourse from 1790-1830: Erasmus Darwin, Thomas Beddoes, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Marcet (2016)

Bridget E. Kapler (Author)
Rivero, Albert J. (Advisor)

Marquette University
Rivero, Albert J.
Publication date: 2016
Language: English

URI: http://search.proquest.com/docview/1776197177?accountid=12964

Outside Links

Chess Science and literature Education Romanticism 19th century 18th century Beddoes, Thomas Marcet, Jane Darwin, Erasmus Edgeworth, Maria

This dissertation project operates on the belief that the democratic, everyday pursuits of science were at least as significant scientifically, and perhaps even more important culturally, as the elite, highly speculative work done by the gentlemen scientists of the Romantic Age (1790-1830). It focuses upon the literary works, careers, and discourse of Erasmus Darwin, Thomas Beddoes, Maria Edgeworth, and Jane Marcet, tracing the role that gender played in assigning recognition and authority in the scientific community. Operating in a public sphere that favored the scientific discoveries of male gentlemen scientists, boundary crossing had to occur decisively, but quietly through a method of subversion and containment. Women had to enter the scientific conversation through traditionally unscientific genres and anonymous or apologetic prefaces, which usually conveyed intent to share science with other women. I explore the problem they all faced, in trying to recount science to a broader audience; I document how and why they responded to each other and toward the changing public sphere's positioning of science. For these reasons, the Romantic Age’s collaboratives of gentlemen scientists significantly influenced how their popularizing contemporaries, specifically women, responded to science and how, as a result, elitism further diversified the pursuit of science. Each author’s presentation of expertise demonstrates the role of popular writings on the sciences in redefining scientific authority. These authors are representative of the two-sided struggle to make science more elite and more popular; and regardless of their allegiance in this struggle, each attempted to make science more accessible. This dissertation explores the tenuous relationship between the professions of authorship and science, highlighting the communication of both scientific discoveries and applications through writing as another facet of scientific practice. Elite gentlemen scientists’ perceptions of others as authors reflect their own self-fashioning of the professional identity of scientific writer, and popularizers of science synthesized scientific information as they learned it themselves, thereby forging a new worldview.

...More

Citation URI

data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB101715752

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Book Dahlia Porter; (2018)
Science, Form, and the Problem of Induction in British Romanticism (/p/isis/citation/CBB734911585/)

Article Thomas Bullington; (2020)
Analogies from the Vegetable Creation: The Botanical Logic of Edgeworth's Belinda (/p/isis/citation/CBB488879997/)

Book Amanda Jo Goldstein; (2017)
Sweet Science: Romantic Materialism and the New Logics of Life (/p/isis/citation/CBB350652099/)

Thesis Goldstein, Amanda Jo; (2011)
“Sweet Science”: Romantic Materialism and the New Sciences of Life (/p/isis/citation/CBB001567306/)

Thesis Kleinneiur, Joann; (2007)
The Chemical Revolution in British Poetry, 1772--1822 (/p/isis/citation/CBB001560620/)

Book Stock, John Edmonds; (2003)
Memoirs of Thomas Beddoes, M. D (/p/isis/citation/CBB000330959/)

Thesis Allard, James Robert; (2002)
“Bare of Laurel”: The Poet's Body and the Romantic Poet-Physician (/p/isis/citation/CBB001562269/)

Article Budge, Gavin; (2007)
Erasmus Darwin and the Poetics of William Wordsworth: “Excitement without the Application of Gross and Violent Stimulants” (/p/isis/citation/CBB001032680/)

Book Priestman, Martin; (2013)
The Poetry of Erasmus Darwin: Enlightened Spaces, Romantic Times (/p/isis/citation/CBB001552321/)

Book Brain, Robert Michael; Cohen, R. S.; Knudsen, Ole; (2007)
Hans Christian Ørsted and the Romantic Legacy in Science: Ideas, Disciplines, Practices (/p/isis/citation/CBB000773725/)

Book Kohlstedt, Sally Gregory; (1999)
History of women in the sciences: Readings from Isis (/p/isis/citation/CBB000110570/)

Article Dolan, Brian; (2002)
Conservative Politicians, Radical Philosophers and the Aerial Remedy for the Diseases of Civilization (/p/isis/citation/CBB000200124/)

Book Charles Morris Lansley; (2018)
Charles Darwin’s Debt to the Romantics: How Alexander von Humboldt, Goethe and Wordsworth Helped Shape Darwin’s View of Nature (/p/isis/citation/CBB071153620/)

Book Mahood, M. M.; (2008)
The Poet as Botanist (/p/isis/citation/CBB000952173/)

Book Devin Griffiths; (2016)
The Age of Analogy: Science and Literature between the Darwins (/p/isis/citation/CBB301678327/)

Book Page, Michael R.; (2012)
The Literary Imagination from Erasmus Darwin to H.G. Wells: Science, Evolution, and Ecology (/p/isis/citation/CBB001320100/)

Book Rossotti, Hazel; (2006)
Chemistry in the Schoolroom, 1806: Selections from Mrs. Marcet's Conversations on Chemistry (/p/isis/citation/CBB000773894/)

Article Vickers, Neil; (2009)
Thomas Beddoes and the German Psychological Tradition (/p/isis/citation/CBB000932263/)

Book Schwartz, Janelle A.; (2012)
Worm Work: Recasting Romanticism (/p/isis/citation/CBB001214295/)

Book Gigante, Denise; (2009)
Life: Organic Form and Romanticism (/p/isis/citation/CBB000954780/)