Mi 10-12 Uhr
Beginn: 04.11.2020
Module:
BA-KulT WTG 4
MA-GKWT 2, 5/1,7/1
MA-TGWT WTG 2, 3
MA FW 7, 8, 9, 10
A leaders-based approach to the history of science tends to foster the idea that the study of scientific and technologic advancement in history may be the realm of intellectual history alone, thus promoting a top-down view in which subaltern classes were, at best, passive recipients. Technical and scientific advancements were instead group efforts characterized by relevant social crossings. For instance, western society entered the age of mass communication by the way of a German goldsmith and sophisticated astronomical observations were made via a device allegedly designed by Dutch spectacle makers. As the eighteenth-century French encyclopedists testified, key advancements in early modern western knowledge came as the result of the unnatural marriage between philosophers and artisans, which mingled speculative audacity to creative craftsmanship.
This seminar will dive into early modern popular culture in search for clues of an independent system of knowledge held by social groups that were commonly regarded as unlearned. We will aim to a street view of the cultural heritage of that underworld of people who silently contributed to the advancement of high culture from below.
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