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JBS Haldane Lecture 2025: Charlotte Bigg
24 March 2025, 5:00 pm–6:30 pm
Our JBS Haldane Lecture 2025 will be delivered by Charlotte Bigg (Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Centre Alexandre Koyré, Paris), entitled "Imaging the universe. A scientific, technical and cultural history".
This event is free.
Event Information
Open to
- All
Availability
- Yes
Cost
- Free
Organiser
-
UCL Department of Science and Technology Studies
Location
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B05 LTChadwick BuildingGower StLondonWC1E 6BTUnited Kingdom
Imaging the universe. A scientific, technical and cultural history
The investigation of the sky has historically been connected to the study of the Earth; narratives about the universe have often chimed with earthly concerns. The starry skies have long been essential for societies’ orientation in time and space, as well as a priviledged surface of projection for religious, philosophical and artistic thought. In the nineteenth century, the interplay between the heavens and the Earth took on new forms, in science and in the cultural realm. I will propose a sketch of the interrelated history of the technologies for imaging the universe and of the techniques for popularizing astronomy in the modern age and how these developments have contributed to shape perceptions of the universe and of humanity’s place therein. Today, technicolor images and immersive devices offer new striking vistas just as the stars gradually disappear from our increasingly bright skies, highlighting the paradoxes of modernity.
About the Speaker
Charlotte Bigg
History researcher at The Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)
A historian of science, Charlotte Bigg joined the CNRS in 2009 after training in England (Oxford, Cambridge) and initial research in Germany, at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, and in Switzerland, at ETH Zurich. Her work is part of a social and cultural history of science focused on the study of practices. She is interested in the epistemological and cultural issues raised by the new visual practices brought about by the instruments that have come into play in observation and visualization in chemistry, physics and astronomy since 1800; as well as the devices that make it possible to communicate these ways of seeing nature and science to different audiences, such as the panorama, the planetarium, the popular observatory, but also museums and exhibitions or scientific cinema. Charlotte Bigg created a seminar at the EHESS on the question of visualization and visual cultures in science.
More about Charlotte Bigg