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STS Research Seminar - Prof. Rob Iliffe - Weds 20th March
20 March 2019, 4:00 pm–6:00 pm
The STS Research Seminar series allows the department to exhibit some of the most interesting recent research in our field. We invite speakers both from UCL and the wider community to present their research to a varied and curious audience.
This event is free.
Event Information
Open to
- All
Availability
- Yes
Cost
- Free
Organiser
-
Department of Science and Technology Studies – Department of Science and Technology Studies.0207 6791328
Location
-
Room 1.2Malet Place Engineering BuildingMalet PlaceLondonWC1E 6BTUnited Kingdom
On Wednesday 20th March, Prof. Rob Iliffe (Oxford) will visit the department to give his talk on 'Crativity and the Invention of the Scientific Genius, 1740-1860'. His talk will begin at 4.30pm in Room1.2, Malet Place Engineering Building, with refreshments available from 4pm.
Read about his recent book on Isaac Newton in this review in The Spectator.
Abstract:
In this talk I examine the emergence of the 'scientific genius' in Europe in the context of changing attitudes to the role of the scientific imagination. I compare the creative characteristics of the scientific genius with those of geniuses in other fields, and discuss a number of aspects relating to the appearance of the scientific genius, including ‘secularization’; the reconfiguration of the natural philosopher as an Enlightenment ‘hero’; changes in attitudes to copyright, invention, and to the social value of ‘projecting’; and the unravelling in the early nineteenth century of the links between genius, morality and sanity.
About the Speaker
Prof. Rob Iliffe
at Oxford
Rob Iliffe is Professor of History of Science at Oxford, Co-Director of the Oxford Centre for the History of Science, Medicine and Technology, and a General Editor of the Newton Project. He is the author of A Very Short Introduction to Newton (OUP 2007) and Priest of Nature: the Religious Worlds of Isaac Newton, (OUP 2017), and co-editor of The Cambridge Companion to Isaac Newton, 2nd ed. (CUP, 2016). He was editor of History of Science from 2001-8 and is currently co-editor of Annals of Science. He has published widely on topics in the history of early modern and Enlightenment science, and particularly on historical interactions between science and religion, scientific voyages of discovery, the life and work of Isaac Newton, the development of ideas about scientific genius and scientific creativity, and the role of scientific instruments in scientific innovation.
More about Prof. Rob Iliffe