Performing Science, Mediating Knowledge. Science, Showmanship, and the Performance of Authority in the Long Nineteenth Century

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About this Item

Nele Wynants, Eva Andersen (eds). Pages: 352 p.Illustrations:20 b/w, 65 col. Language(s):English. Publication Year:2026. ISBN: 978-2-503-61664-3. Brepols. Hardback -
Summary
Performing Science, Mediating Knowledge examines how science was staged, embodied, and made visible in the long nineteenth century ? a period defined by rapid technological transformation and an expanding public culture of knowledge. Moving across settings such as lecture halls, world?s fairs, opera houses, scientific congresses, and travelling fairgrounds, this volume traces the heterogeneous performance cultures through which scientific ideas circulated, were challenged, and gained authority.

Drawing on performance studies, media history, and the histories of science and knowledge, the chapters analyse how rhetoric address, bodily gestures, visual media, scenography, and audience interaction shaped both the credibility and the appeal of scientific claims.

Foregrounding the wide range of actors involved ? scientists, showpeople, artists, lecturers ? and the various media and venues through which science entered the public sphere, the chapters reveal how scientific ideas were shaped through practices of staging, and how science functioned as a cultural practice embedded in the political, social, and aesthetic dynamics of the nineteenth century.

TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction

Performing Science, Mediating Knowledge: Introduction
Nele Wynants

Part I: Staging Science: Actors, Networks, and Circulations

From Dispositifs to Actor-Networks: The Popular Science Exhibition Networks of Eric Stuart Bruce, the Magic Lantern, and other Actors (1880?1914)
Joe Kember

Concerto for Sax and Velpeau: Performing Medicine with Exotic Plants and Powerful Machinery in Paris of the Second Empire
Irina Podgorny

Performing Electromagnetism and Electricity on Nineteenth-Century Hungarian Stages
Kornélia Deres

Objects of a Human Display: Visual Representations of Smoon, Cakus, Yunka, and Stinée (1846?1856)
Parveen Kanhai

Part II: Performance Venues: Theatrical Setting, Space, and Spectacle

Darkened Rooms: Between the Spaces of Victorian Science and Illusion
Iwan Rhys Morus

?An Exhibit of Thoughts by Spoken Language? at the Auxiliary World?s Congresses of the 1893 Chicago World?s Columbian Exposition
Charlotte Bigg and Thomas Mougey

Chemistry at the Opera: Spectacle and the Science of Anti-Flammability at the Paris Opéra (1820s?1880s)
Sofie Lachapelle and Kimberly Francis

Imbrications of Blindness, Heredity, and Performance in Late-Nineteenth and Early-Twentieth-Century Theatre
Daniel I. Abdalla and Kirsten E. Shepherd

Exploring the Intersection of Art, Knowledge, and Exhibition: Interview with Wesley Meuris
Wesley Meuris

Part III: Objects, Devices, and Performing Media

Performing in the Auditorium: Scientific Lantern Lectures between the Popular and the Academic (1890?1914)
Sabine Lenk

Animating the Past: The Magic Lantern Travelogues of Charles Buls (1837?1914) as Sites of Knowledge Mediation
Eleonora Paklons

The Popularization of Physique Amusante and Illusionism Practices in France: Illusionist Literature and Paradigms between Science, Games, and Magic (1800?1850)
Thibaut Rioult

?Thing Knowledge?: Understanding the Transit and Transfer of Binocular Vision and Motion Perception Principles in Nineteenth-Century Science and Popular Culture
Deirdre Feeney.

Seller Inventory # fru2267

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Performing Science, Mediating Knowledge. Science, Showmanship, and the Performance of Authority in the Long Nineteenth Century
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: New