Sponsored by the Office for History of Science and Technology (UC Berkeley)
And the History of Health Sciences Program (UCSF)
Bruno Belhoste
Université Paris X-Nanterre
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Public Science, Parisian Newspapers, and Scientific Journalism under the Constitutional Monarchy, 1815-1848
After 1815, the Parisian press expanded rapidly, benefiting from (relative) freedom, growing readership, and technological improvements. Besides specialized scientific journals, dailies gave important coverage to science, and journalists began attending meetings at the Paris Academy of Sciences in the 1820s. Through articles published in Parisian press, for instance, the sharp debate between Cuvier and Geoffroy on the unity of organic composition echoed across Europe in 1830. Arago's election as perpetual secretary of the Academy, followed by the July Revolution, gave this publicization of science a new impulse, with dailies regularly publishing serial reviews of the weekly meetings. The peak was reached in 1839, when Arago announced the invention of photography to his academician colleagues; the Parisian press immediately spread the piece of news, giving birth to a craze of daguerreomania. This talk describes the process by which Parisian scientific life was transformed by the press. Moreover, it analyzes some of the consequences and reactions. This proves to be an adequate background to explain the founding of the Academy's weekly Comptes rendus, one of the nineteenth century's major scientific journals.
4:00PM
Monday, February 27, 2006
140 Barrows Hall
UC Berkeley
Co-Sponsored by the French Studies Program
Office for History of Science and Technology, 543 Stephens Hall #2350
University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-2350
tel: (510) 642-4581, e-mail: diana@berkeley.edu
