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SUMMARY:Barnum\, Bache and Poe: the forging of science in the Antebellum U
 S - John Tresch (University of Pennsylvania)
DTSTART:20180215T153000Z
DTEND:20180215T170000Z
UID:TALK98530@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Agnes Bolinska
DESCRIPTION:Two opposed tendencies characterised US public culture around 
 1840: first\, a sharp increase of printed matter in which the sites\, audi
 ences\, styles and speakers for matters of public concern exploded in numb
 er and diversity\; second\, an elite movement to unify knowledge through c
 entralised institutions. In the domain of science\, Barnum's 'American Mus
 eum' typified the first\, while the US Coast Survey\, directed by patricia
 n polymath and West Point graduate Alexander Dallas Bache\, exemplified th
 e second. The life and writings of Edgar Allan Poe – who trained at West
  Point\, and wrote constantly about the sciences\, even as he struggled to
  survive as an editor\, poet and storyteller – pushed in both directions
  at once. Poe 'forged' American science and letters in two senses: by craf
 ting believable fakes which fed the uncertainty about authority over knowl
 edge\, and by lending aid to projects to restrict the flow of information 
 and establish a unified intellectual infrastructure. His work thus offers 
 uniquely astute\, if dramatically conflicted commentary on the relations o
 f science and public in a key phase of national consciousness and industri
 alisation.
LOCATION:Seminar Room 2\, Department of History and Philosophy of Science
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