Sponsored by the Office for History of Science and Technology (UC Berkeley)
And the History of Health Sciences Program (UCSF)
Mordechai Feingold
California Institute of Technology
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Science and Satire in Early Modern England
Modern scholars are cognizant of the acute need felt by members of the Royal Society for a work of propaganda that could fend off criticism and galvanize new support for the frail new institution. However, most scholars failed to recognize that the most serious challenge came not from university critics, or religious conservatives, but from the prevalence of satire aimed at the Society in fashionable circles from its very inception. Undoubtedly, in part this vogue is attributable to the general temper of the age, which savored wit and a clever repartee. Yet it was the disparity between the seemingly ludicrous scientific activities of the Fellows on the one hand and the grandiose rhetoric concerning the long-term significance and utility of their endeavors on the other, which provoked such a profusion of satire. My lecture will attempt to address the nature of the satirists¹ hostility to the new science, and the effect of such satires on the practice of science.
4:00PM
Monday, October 23, 2006
140 Barrows Hall
UC Berkeley
Co-Sponsored by the Center for British Studies
And the Townsend Center for the Humanities
Office for History of Science and Technology, 543 Stephens Hall #2350
University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-2350
tel: (510) 642-4581, e-mail: ohst@berkeley.edu
