THURSDAY 28TH FEBRUARY, 4PM:
DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY, UNIVERSITY OF EXETER CORNWALL CAMPUS,
TREMOUGH HISTORY SEMINAR
Jonathan R. Topham (University of Leeds): 'Scientific publishing and the
readership for science in early nineteenth-century Britain'
Abstract:
The British book trade of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries
underwent a massive expansion and diversification of its products as it
became increasingly commercialized and mechanized. At the same time, a
rapid rise occurred in both literacy and reading, owing to such social and
cultural changes as population growth, urbanization, and the extension of
elementary education. New class-conscious reading audiences were formed,
and publishers were eager to supply them with what they wanted. These
transformations in print culture were accompanied by a related
transformation in the natural and medical sciences. The sciences became
increasingly divided into specialist disciplines, each with its own small
cohort of expert practitioners who were increasingly separated from a wider,
fragmenting public. A new word, 'scientist', was devised to describe the
emerging specialists, and a new notion of 'popularization' was used to
describe their relationship with the proliferating audiences for science.
These rapid developments were reflected in the very considerable changes
which occurred in scientific and medical publications, ranging from the
expansion of specialist scientific periodicals to the emergence of new
genres of 'popular science' publishing for non-specialist audiences. In
this paper, I will consider how the changes in scientific and medical
publishing came about, introducing some of the leading publishers
responsible for the production of scientific and medical books in this
period and examining their role in the process.
Location: Seminar E, Daphne Du Maurier Building, University of Exeter
Cornwall Campus, Treliever Road, Penryn, Cornwall TR10 9EZ
***Please note that this seminar will also be video conferenced-linked to
Streatham Court A Lecture Theatre, The University of Exeter, Rennes Drive,
Exeter, EX4 4QJ***
A Cornwall campus map is available at
<http://www.exeter.ac.uk/cornwall/about_the_campus/images/tremough_map_2007.pdf>
A Streatham campus map is available at
<http://www.ex.ac.uk/about/streatham.shtml>
For further information please contact Dr. Tim Cooper,
[log in to unmask], tel: +44 (0) 1326 253760
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