Brigitte Van Tiggelen - Böcker

The history of the modern sciences has long overlooked the significance of domesticity as a physical, social, and symbolic force in the shaping of knowledge production. This book provides a welcome reorientation to our understanding of the making of the modern sciences globally by emphasizing the centrality of domesticity in diverse scientific enterprises.

In this volume, a distinguished set of international scholars examine the nature of collaboration between life partners in the sciences, with particular attention to the ways in which personal and professional dynamics can foster or inhibit scientific practice. Breaking from traditional gender analyses which focus on divisions of labor and the assignment of credit, the studies scrutinize collaboration as a variable process between partners living in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who were married and divorced, heterosexual and homosexual, aristocratic and working-class and politically right and left. The contributors analyze cases shaped by their particular geographical locations, ranging from retreat settings like the English countryside and Woods Hole, Massachusetts, to university laboratories and urban centers in Berlin, Stockholm, Geneva and London. The volume demonstrates how the terms and meanings of collaboration, variably shaped by disciplinary imperatives, cultural mores, and the agency of the collaborators themselves, illuminate critical intellectual and institutional developments in the modern sciences.

In this volume, a distinguished set of international scholars examine the nature of collaboration between life partners in the sciences, with particular attention to the ways in which personal and professional dynamics can foster or inhibit scientific practice. Breaking from traditional gender analyses which focus on divisions of labor and the assignment of credit, the studies scrutinize collaboration as a variable process between partners living in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries who were married and divorced, heterosexual and homosexual, aristocratic and working-class and politically right and left. The contributors analyze cases shaped by their particular geographical locations, ranging from retreat settings like the English countryside and Woods Hole, Massachusetts, to university laboratories and urban centers in Berlin, Stockholm, Geneva and London. The volume demonstrates how the terms and meanings of collaboration, variably shaped by disciplinary imperatives, cultural mores, and the agency of the collaborators themselves, illuminate critical intellectual and institutional developments in the modern sciences.

2019 celebrated the 150th anniversary of Mendeleev's first publication of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. This book offers an original viewpoint on the history of the Periodic Table: a collective volume with short illustrated papers on women and their contribution to the building and the understanding of the Periodic Table and of the elements themselves. Few existing texts deal with women's contributions to the Periodic Table. A book on women's work not only helps make historical women chemists more visible; it also sheds light on the multifaceted character of the work on the chemical elements and their periodic relationships. Stories of female input contribute to the understanding of the nature of science, of collaboration as opposed to the traditional depiction of the lone genius.While the discovery of elements is a natural part of this collective work, the book goes beyond discovery histories. Stories of women contributors to the chemistry of the elements also include understanding the concept of element, identifying properties, developing analytical methods, mapping the radioactive series, finding applications of elements, and the participation of women as audiences when new elements were presented at lectures.The book contains chapters on pre-periodic table contributions as well as recent discoveries, unknown stories as well as more famous ones, with an emphasis on work conducted in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Elements from different groups in the periodic table are included, so as to represent a variety of chemical contexts.

2019 celebrated the 150th anniversary of Mendeleev's first publication of the Periodic Table of Chemical Elements. This book offers an original viewpoint on the history of the Periodic Table: a collective volume with short illustrated papers on women and their contribution to the building and the understanding of the Periodic Table and of the elements themselves. Few existing texts deal with women's contributions to the Periodic Table. A book on women's work not only helps make historical women chemists more visible; it also sheds light on the multifaceted character of the work on the chemical elements and their periodic relationships. Stories of female input contribute to the understanding of the nature of science, of collaboration as opposed to the traditional depiction of the lone genius.While the discovery of elements is a natural part of this collective work, the book goes beyond discovery histories. Stories of women contributors to the chemistry of the elements also include understanding the concept of element, identifying properties, developing analytical methods, mapping the radioactive series, finding applications of elements, and the participation of women as audiences when new elements were presented at lectures.The book contains chapters on pre-periodic table contributions as well as recent discoveries, unknown stories as well as more famous ones, with an emphasis on work conducted in the late 19th century and early 20th century. Elements from different groups in the periodic table are included, so as to represent a variety of chemical contexts.

Popular associations with chemistry range from poisons, hazards, chemical warfare and environmental pollution to alchemical pseudoscience, sorcery and mad scientists, which gravely affect the public image of science in general. While chemists have merely complained about their public image, social and cultural studies of science have largely avoided anything related to chemistry.This book provides, for the first time, an in-depth understanding of the cultural and historical contexts in which the public image of chemistry has emerged. It argues that this image has been shaped through recurring and unlucky interactions between chemists in popularizing their discipline and nonchemists in expressing their expectations and fears of science. Written by leading scholars from the humanities, social sciences and chemistry in North America, Europe and Australia, this volume explores a blind spot in the science-society relationship and calls for a constructive dialog between scientists and their public.