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Despite the efforts of modern scholars to explain the origins of science communication as a social, rhetorical, and aesthetic phenomenon, most researchers approach the popularization of science from the perspective of present issues, thus ignoring its historical roots in classical culture along with its continuities, disruptions, and transformations.
This volume fills this research gap with a genealogically reflected introduction into the popularization of science as a recurrent cultural technique. The category »popular science« is elucidated in interdisciplinary and diachronic dialogue, discussing case studies from all historical periods.
Classicists, archaeologists, medievalists, art historians, sociologists, and historians of science provide the first diachronic and multi-layered approach to the rhetoric techniques, aesthetics, and societal conditions that have shaped the dissemination and reception of scientific knowledge.
»A novel and original take on the history of popular science show cases that making science accessible to the public has been part of scientific activity since ancient times.
Thanks to a careful curation of the collection of texts, this volume as a whole offers more than the sum of its parts(chapters).«
Jesús Muñoz Morcillo, classicist (PhD) and art historian (PhD), is research fellow at the ZAK | Centre for Cultural and General Studies and the Institute of Art and Architecture History (IKB) at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT).
Caroline Y. Robertson-von Trotha, sociologist (PhD), is founding director of the ZAK | Centre for Cultural and General Studies at Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), coordinator of the German network of the Anna Lindh Foundation, member of the Culture Committee of the German UNESCO Commission, and chairlady of the Academic Council for Culture and Foreign Policy (WIKA) at the Institute for Foreign Cultural Relations (ifa).
Frontmatter 1
Contents 5
List of Figures 9
Preface 13
The Origins of Popular Science as a Rhetorical and Protreptical Practice 23
From Rational Recreation to Fun with Science. Continuities in the History of Science Popularization since the Enlightenment 65
Mythology and Rhetoric Exercises at the Greek School 95
The Panathenaic Prize-Amphorae as Communication Media 115
Popular Knowledge and its Rhetorical Use in Aristotle 131
Ékphrasis as a Device for Knowledge Dissemination in Euripides 151
Argument Schemes Related to Popular Science in the Second Sophistic 165
Knowledge about the Sea and its Creatures in the Roman Empire 179
The Celestial Axis in Manilius' Astronomica: Making the Invisible Visible 215
Popular Mechanics: Hero of Alexandria from Antiquity to the Renaissance 231
Knowledge Order and Knowledge Popularization in Pre-Modern Encyclopaedism 255
Was Cometen eygentlich seyen.* Ways of Imparting Knowledge about the Nature of Comets in Early Modern Ephemeral Literature 285
More Publicity through Very Short Books. Epitomes in Late Antiquity and the Renaissance 315
Pictorial Science and Enlightenment Art: Joseph Wright, William Pether, and the Cognitive Effect of Grayscales 345
Popularity Despite Anti-Popularization Thinking of Optical Drawing Devices in the Early 19th Century 367
Wilhelm Lübke. Art History for Feuilletons 391
Popular Aesthetics of the 19th Century. Ornamental Prints and Pattern Sheets as Actors for Popularization During the 1870s 407
Wassily Kandinsky's Conception of a Vibration of the Soul: Art Theory at the Crossroads of Esoteric Literature, Popular Science, and Aesthetics 425
Visual Nature Metaphors of Cybernetics in Popular Science and the Arts 441
From "The Destroyer of Worlds" to "Atoms for Peace" (and Back?). The Discourse on Nuclear Power in US Popular Science Magazines during the Early Cold War Era 461
Iconophilia of the Brain, Stage 3? An Epistemic Regime, the Popular Science Magazine Gehirn & Geist, and Visual Culture 477
Watch and Learn! Image-Based Popularization of Academic Reasoning and Scientific Action in Fictional Movies and Comics 497
Innovative Popular Science Communication? Materiality, Aesthetics, and Gender in Science Slams 517
On Honey, VR Goggles, and Real Medicine 547
About the Authors 553
Index of Names and Terms 559