Mary Terrall: A Spectacle Pleasing to the Mind: Natural History on Display

Speaker(s): Mary Terrall (UCLA, History)

On Thursday, January 31, Professor Mary Terrall (UCLA, history) will be discussing with us a chapter of her book in progress Catching Nature in the Act: Réaumur and the Practice of Natural History in the 18th Century (University of Chicago press, forthcoming). To get a copy of the chapter, entitled A Spectacle Pleasing to the Mind: Natural History on Display please email workshop coordinator Biliana Kassabova (bilianak [at] stanford.edu (bilianak[at]stanford[dot]edu)).

This event is generously co-organized and co-sponsored by Stanford’s program in the History and Philosophy of Science and Technology. 

Please note that for Professor Terrall’s event we will exceptionally be meeting in the Board room of the Stanford Humanities Center. Also exceptionally, we will hold the workshop from 6 to 8pm, with dinner and drinks starting at 6 and the discussion of the paper starting at 6:30. 

Here is the abstract to Professor Terrall’s chapter:

Abstract: Eighteenth-century collections have been studied as instantiations of classification schemes (reducing nature to order), as fashionable commodities, as aesthetic statements, and as vehicles for the domestication of exotic objects. This paper takes a different approach, considering a few examples of collections of insects, birds, shells and other naturalia as the material remnants of scientific practice and the representation of that practice to various kinds of observers, spectators and publics.

We look forward to seeing you!