scholarly journals Raising a Modern Ghost: The Magic Lantern and the Persistence of Wonder in the Victorian Education of the Senses

2009 ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Verity Hunt
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Optical Devices ◽  
Middle Ground ◽  
Optical Science ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Magic Lantern ◽  
Looking Back

Abstract This article begins by posing the question of why the eminent Victorian inventor and scientist of optics, Sir David Brewster (1781-1868), chooses to appear in a popular domestic magic lantern handbook of the 1860s, offering a testimonial to the value and importance of that by-that-time familiar parlour toy? By looking back some thirty years or so to Brewster’s Letters On Natural Magic (1832), in which the scientist sets out his project for a popular training of the senses, it highlights the part played by optical entertainments and discourses of magical wonder in Victorian education(s) of the eye, and the particular visuality of wonder as sensory experience. In its discussion of wonder, this article asserts the importance of an emotion frequently excluded from a longstanding picture of a nineteenth century ‘disenchanted’ by science and technology. Someone like Brewster is interesting because he explicitly, programmatically weighs in against irrationality; yet, in explaining away superstitious wonder in terms of, predominantly optical illusion, he retains some of the glamour or fascination of these illusions. As a member of the scientific elite working for the popularisation of optical science and technology for the ‘vulgar’ masses, the scientist may be reassessed and understood as a player in a cultural middle ground, an ambiguous hinterland between positions of outright superstition and outright disillusionment. Exploring the enchantments of technology, this article underlines how optical devices and the visions they offer are instrumental in the evolution of an emerging nexus of Victorian wonders. Through a case study of the magic lantern in nineteenth-century popular science and entertainment, it shows how multiple, diverse ‘wondering’ perspectives gather around a single, longstanding visual machine.

scholarly journals Should We Fear Ourselves? A Discussion about the Future of Our Species: Will Science and Technology Redeem Our Specie in the Future? Or Will Science and Technology Be the Source of Our Collective Downfall?

2019 ◽  
pp. 14-19
Author(s):  
Martha Hernández
Keyword(s):  
Information Technology ◽  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Homo Sapiens ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Even Start ◽  
Distant Future ◽  
The Future ◽  
One Step ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Looking Back

When looking back into our history, science and technology have been the tools used by our species to fight its survival battle against its old enemies (diseases, famine, epidemics, etc.). But, ever since human discovered genetics and NBIC technologies (nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science), our ambitions went one step further. We do not longer limit ourselves to ‘fix’ the Homo sapiens. Now we dream of enhancing the Homo sapiens and bring it into the next level: the Homo Deus. The consequences of our desires remain uncertain; but whatever they are, we need to accept that in a not too distant future the notions and understandings about ‘being human’ will appear less straight forward and even start to fade away. This paper discusses the senses in which science and technology have made humanity more distinctive as a species. As constructors of our own future, we need to question: will science and technology redeem humanity in the future? Or will they be the source of our collective downfall?

Evangelicals and the Plurality of Worlds Debate in Scotland, 1810–55

2015 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 189-210 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bill Jenkins
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Religious Beliefs ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Popular Science ◽  
Natural Philosopher ◽  
Important Group ◽  
New Synthesis ◽  
Science Writer ◽  
Political Economist

In the first half of the nineteenth century a remarkable group of Scottish evangelicals set out to address the theological questions raised by the possibility of intelligent life on other worlds. These included the popular science writer Thomas Dick, reformer and political economist Thomas Chalmers, natural philosopher David Brewster, and geologist and journalist Hugh Miller. All concluded that only a universe where life was ubiquitous would be compatible with the power and wisdom of the Deity. Each of them proceeded to formulate an answer to the problem of how the incarnation and atonement of Christ could relate to beings on other planets. The writings of these figures present a fascinating case study on how an important group of evangelical thinkers attempted to meet the challenges posed by modern science, not by rejecting its findings, but by developing a new synthesis between it and their religious beliefs.

scholarly journals Introduction

2010 ◽  
Vol 23 (4) ◽  
pp. 393-399 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leo Corry ◽  
Tal Golan
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Love Affair ◽  
Unique Case ◽  
Book Of Nature ◽  
The People ◽  
History Of ◽  
State Of Israel

The history of Israeli science and technology offers a unique case study of a young and small nation that has developed an unprecedented love affair with science and technology. Unlike other nineteenth-century ideologies, Zionism was never considered to be founded on science. Nevertheless, from the very start, the Zionist movement perceived the sciences, pure and applied, as central to its program of creating a new Jewish society in the Land of Israel (Funkenstein [1985] 2003). Modern science was to provide twice for the Jews: a relief from their suffocating religion and the tools needed to recover their ancient land from its ruins. Israel would remain the people of the book, but it would be the Book of Nature, not of God, that would set it free. Sharing the universal knowledge and values of science with mankind, the Jews would finally become both normal and self-determined. Thus, already in the nineteenth century, long before the State of Israel was founded, Zionist visionaries had dreamt of it as a modern version of Francis Bacon's utopian Kingdom of Bensalem, where science and technology would provide health, wealth, and power (Elboim-Dror 1993; Herzl 1902).

Touching Blind Bodies: A Critical Inquiry into Pedagogical and Cultural Constructions of Visual Disability in the Nineteenth Century

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Tilley ◽  
Jan Eric Olsén
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Visually Impaired ◽  
Blind People ◽  
Embodied Experience ◽  
Visual Disability ◽  
Visually Impaired People ◽  
Educational Challenges ◽  
Impaired People ◽  
The Senses ◽  
Cultural Constructions

Changing ideas on the nature of and relationship between the senses in nineteenth-century Europe constructed blindness as a disability in often complex ways. The loss or absence of sight was disabling in this period, given vision’s celebrated status, and visually impaired people faced particular social and educational challenges as well as cultural stereotyping as poor, pitiable and intellectually impaired. However, the experience of blind people also came to challenge received ideas that the visual was the privileged mode of accessing information about the world, and contributed to an increasingly complex understanding of the tactile sense. In this chapter, we consider how changing theories of the senses helped shape competing narratives of identity for visually impaired people in the nineteenth century, opening up new possibilities for the embodied experience of blind people by impressing their sensory ability, rather than lack thereof. We focus on a theme that held particular social and cultural interest in nineteenth-century accounts of blindness: travel and geography.

‘A Routh O’ Auld Nick-Nackets’ – the antiquarian collection of John Rae

2015 ◽  
Vol 36-37 (1) ◽  
pp. 163-183
Author(s):  
Paul Taylor
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Moral Education ◽  
The United States ◽  
Representative Case ◽  
National Museums ◽  
The Individual ◽  
The University

John Rae, a Scottish antiquarian collector and spirit merchant, played a highly prominent role in the local natural history societies and exhibitions of nineteenth-century Aberdeen. While he modestly described his collection of archaeological lithics and other artefacts, principally drawn from Aberdeenshire but including some items from as far afield as the United States, as a mere ‘routh o’ auld nick-nackets' (abundance of old knick-knacks), a contemporary singled it out as ‘the best known in private hands' (Daily Free Press 4/5/91). After Rae's death, Glasgow Museums, National Museums Scotland, the University of Aberdeen Museum and the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, as well as numerous individual private collectors, purchased items from the collection. Making use of historical and archive materials to explore the individual biography of Rae and his collection, this article examines how Rae's collecting and other antiquarian activities represent and mirror wider developments in both the ‘amateur’ antiquarianism carried out by Rae and his fellow collectors for reasons of self-improvement and moral education, and the ‘professional’ antiquarianism of the museums which purchased his artefacts. Considered in its wider nineteenth-century context, this is a representative case study of the early development of archaeology in the wider intellectual, scientific and social context of the era.

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Problem-Based Learning (Pbl) Implemented In The Textile Engineering Course - A Case Study On Ahsanullah University Of Science And Technology, Bangladesh

2014 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-114
Author(s):  
Lal Mohan Baral ◽  
Ramzan Muhammad ◽  
Claudiu Vasile Kifor ◽  
Ioan Bondrea
Keyword(s):  
Engineering Students ◽  
Science And Technology ◽  
Problem Based Learning ◽  
Professional Life ◽  
System Level ◽  
Teaching Tool ◽  
Technical Problems ◽  
Empirical Survey ◽  
Undergraduate Programs

AbstractProblem-based learning as a teaching tool is now used globally in many areas of higher education. It provides an opportunity for students to explore technical problems from a system-level perspective and to be self-directed life-long learner which is mandatory for equipping engineering students with the skill and knowledge. This paper presents a case study illustrating the effectiveness of implemented Problem-based learning (PBL) during five semesters in the undergraduate programs of Textile Engineering in Ahsanullah University of Science and Technology (AUST). An assessment has been done on the basis of feedback from the students as well as their employers by conducting an empirical survey for the evaluation of PBL impact to enhance the student's competencies. The Evaluations indicate that students have achieved remarkable competencies through PBL practices which helped them to be competent in their professional life.

Vom Gegenstand zur Gegenständlichkeit des Sozialen Georg Simmels »Soziologie der Sinne« und das Hören im Zeitalter der technischen Reproduzierbarkeit von Musik

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 107-120
Author(s):  
Uwe C. Steiner
Keyword(s):  
High Fidelity ◽  
Elementary Processes ◽  
The Senses

Simmel’s Sociology explores elementary processes of socialization or collectivization. Thus, the sociology of the senses examines how sight, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting contributes to constituting societies. Though Simmel observes that modern refined civilization diminishes the depths of the senses but increases its emphasis or enhancement with lust or aversion, the conclusion cannot be avoided that the artifacts and technologies of hearing have to be examined. Accordingly, this article can be regarded as a case study in the wake of Simmel: How do modern aural technologies at the threshold between high fidelity and postfidelity inform contemporary hearing?

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