PhD Dissertation by Simon Werrett
How does science move between cultures? This thesis explores the introduction of science into Rus... more How does science move between cultures? This thesis explores the introduction of science into Russia in the eighteenth century through the history of the first decades of the Imperial Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg. I show how the academy succeeded to the degree that it was able to establish secure patronage from the Russian court and government, which demanded the cultivation of a continually changing repertoire of skills appealing to these institutions. Through a grand cabinet of curiosities, artisanal projects, scientific and pyrotechnic spectacles, and deft administration, the academy became an enduring element in Russian scientific culture. In the process, Russia developed an influential vision of Enlightenment that would feed back into the enlightened institutions of western Europe.
Topics included:
*Reading the foundation of St. Petersburg through Foucault
*Science and Spectacle
*Cabinets of Curiosities
*Public Science
*Fireworks
*Museums
*Court patronage
*Russian Icons and Chemistry
*Art and Science
*Russian Enlightenment
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Books by Simon Werrett
""This book explores the historical and geographical relationship of the arts and sciences throug... more ""This book explores the historical and geographical relationship of the arts and sciences through the varied interactions that developed between scientists and pyrotechnists from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries. Focusing on three cities – London, Paris, and St. Petersburg - the book reveals a distinctive geographical patterning of art-science relations, and traces the many ways that fireworks artists and natural philosophers transformed each other's work. "Fireworks" explores the diverse sciences that shaped fireworks, including mathematics, classical literature, architecture, chemistry, and astronomy. The book is based on many new archives and visual records, and includes numerous illustrations and colour plates.
Chapters examine the following themes:
1. Gunners, Fireworks, and Alchemy
2. Fireworks and Natural Magic
3. Fireworks and the Experimental Philosophy (Robert Boyle)
4. Fireworks in Russia (Mikhail Lomonosov)
5. Italian pyrotechnists in Paris, London, and St. Petersburg (Green Park)
6. Fireworks and the Enlightenment/ Pyrotechnic Theories of Electricity (Diderot)
7. Fireworks as Rational Recreations (Pleasure Gardens)
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Papers by Simon Werrett
Isis, 2010
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Early Science and Medicine, 2015
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Journal of Bentham Studies, 1999
... In his correspondence he discussed the Panopticon alongside accounts of the 'two... more ... In his correspondence he discussed the Panopticon alongside accounts of the 'two legged tormentor' Benson. 18 ... 8 For most of Catherine the Great's rule, two opposing parties, one surrounding the Orlov brothers and another led by Nikita Panin, vied for authority in the Russian ...
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Science, 2004
In The Body of the Artisan, Pamela Smith notes that while historians have revealed important tran... more In The Body of the Artisan, Pamela Smith notes that while historians have revealed important transfers of methods and tools between artisanry and the sciences in the early modern period (circa 14501750), none have viewed this story from the artisans' perspective. Focusing ...
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Oxford Handbooks Online, 2014
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Technology and Culture, 2007
Like recent works by Jonathan Sterne, Mark Katz, and other scholars, this book has much to say ab... more Like recent works by Jonathan Sterne, Mark Katz, and other scholars, this book has much to say about the history of the music industry and musical culture. It reflects a merging of interests between scholars in different fields and disciplines and throws light on new directions in ...
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Science, 2004
In The Body of the Artisan, Pamela Smith notes that while historians have revealed important tran... more In The Body of the Artisan, Pamela Smith notes that while historians have revealed important transfers of methods and tools between artisanry and the sciences in the early modern period (circa 14501750), none have viewed this story from the artisans' perspective. Focusing ...
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The British Journal for the History of Science, 2004
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Public Domain Review
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Ab Imperio no. 3, Nov 2008
This essay, revised from an original version that appeared in 2000, reconstructs the genealogy of... more This essay, revised from an original version that appeared in 2000, reconstructs the genealogy of the Panopticon, which since the work of Michel Foucault has been associated with modern regimes of control, as a model of contemporary society managed through surveillance and diffused power. Although historians routinely attribute the design of the Panopticon to Jeremy Bentham, in fact it was the invention of his brother, Samuel Bentham, while serving Prince Potemkin in the new southern provinces of the Russian empire in the 1780s. The essay provides a context for Samuel’s Panopticon and suggests how indebted the institution was to the theatricality of noble life in Russia at this time, and to the political spectacles of the imperial Russian court. The Panopticon, it is recalled, was created as part of a ‘production utopia’ Samuel was building on Potemkin’s estate to be shown off to the Empress Catherine II during a tour of newly-acquired imperial territories. The essay thus challenges Foucault and others’ assertion that the Panopticon represented a radically new form of power at the close of the eighteenth century. Rather, the Panopticon owed a debt to the ‘theatre of absolutism’ that subsequent versions, and historical accounts, have erased from view.
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British Journal for the History of Science, 2012
This essay is about the history of recycling and explores how natural philosophers (scientists) r... more This essay is about the history of recycling and explores how natural philosophers (scientists) re-used and made do with materials in seventeenth and eighteenth-century experimental sites. The discussion examines second-hand markets for scientific instruments, the adaptation of architectural space to experimental inquiry, maintenance, repair, and other forms of 'recycling' in science. The essay is the first in a planned series exploring the theme of the sustainability of modern science.
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Viewpoint (the newsletter of the British Society for the History of Science), Nov 5, 2013
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Ambix, Vol. 60 No. 2 (May 2013): 122–138, May 2013
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Nineteenth Century Theatre and Film
In the nineteenth century leisured Londoners might visit the theaters to experience spectacle, bu... more In the nineteenth century leisured Londoners might visit the theaters to experience spectacle, but they could also tour the sights of the city. A significant, if surprising, tourist destination was the Royal Arsenal in Woolwich, home to the Royal Artillery since the early eighteenth century. This paper explores the spectacular and theatrical dimensions of Woolwich Arsenal, emphasizing the institution’s multiple roles as a hub of empire, as a center for tourism, and as an institution that was well-connected to other sites of theatre and performance in London. The exhibitionary skills of Woolwich gunners are also shown to have contributed directly to the success of new technologies used to extend the British empire. Besides being a central military institution in the nineteenth century, the Royal Arsenal was also a vibrant site of exhibition and performance. At select times the Arsenal was open to the public, and the public enjoyed visiting. One visitor described the Arsenal as “the palladium of our Empire, where one wonder succeeds another so rapidly that the mind of a visitor is kept in a continual gaze of admiration.” Gunnery was a spectacle, educational, patriotic, improving, and entertaining. Artillerists staged grand parades, reviews, and mock skirmishes, showed off military hardware on Woolwich Common, and displayed imperial trophies in an oriental-styled museum, the Royal Military Repository. Artillerists also continued their traditional role of performing grand fireworks displays for royal occasions such as coronations, weddings, and birthdays, and in the Arsenal the royal artificers managed London’s largest pyrotechnic manufactory, the ‘Royal Laboratory’. Fireworks linked Woolwich to other public and commercial sites of exhibition in London such as the pleasure gardens, while the abstract patterns of light which artillerists displayed helped to inspire new optical media such as the Kaleidoscope. Exploring the Arsenal as a site of public display not only expands our map of London’s exhibitions in the nineteenth century, but also reveals important skills and techniques of performance which artillerists exploited in promoting novel technical projects. After examining the exhibition culture of the Arsenal, the paper considers the war rockets invented by Sir William Congreve, 2nd Bart., c. 1800-1820, to demonstrate how the exhibition practices of Woolwich Arsenal proved critical in making his new invention a successful weapon often used in Britain’s imperial campaigns.
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Pulkovo Observatory, founded in 1839 near St. Petersburg Russia, was celebrated for its precision... more Pulkovo Observatory, founded in 1839 near St. Petersburg Russia, was celebrated for its precision astronomy and lavish state support. This paper explains the fortunes of Pulkovo by setting it in the context of astronomical institution-building across the Russian empire and of changes in imperial Russian culture under Tsar Nicholas I. Russian astronomy, it is argued, reflected the ‘theatrical’ nature of Nicholas’s Russia. The Tsar showcased impressive technical projects in the capital, visible to foreigners, while neglecting more distant institutions and endeavors. Central institutions and shows of patronage displayed an order that was typically lacking in the provincial backstage. Russian astronomy followed the trend, and Pulkovo is examined as another of Nicholas’s front-stage displays of patronage, with consequences for both the technical practices of the observatory and for the history of astronomy in the nineteenth century.
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in Fish & Ships: A Journey Round the World at Captain Cook’s Table and Eating the Exotic, ed. Sophie Forgan , 2012
Fireworks were carried or made on many European voyages of empire and exploration from the sixtee... more Fireworks were carried or made on many European voyages of empire and exploration from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries. This essay explores the uses of fireworks on the voyages of Captain James Cook in the 1760s-70s, as tools of diplomacy, competition, play, and science. Cook and his crews showed fireworks in reciprocal entertainments with Pacific islanders, and recorded in unprecedented detail the reactions of Pacific people to their displays. The essay concludes by proposing a pyrotechnic context for the death of Captain Cook in Hawai'i in 1779.
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PhD Dissertation by Simon Werrett
Topics included:
*Reading the foundation of St. Petersburg through Foucault
*Science and Spectacle
*Cabinets of Curiosities
*Public Science
*Fireworks
*Museums
*Court patronage
*Russian Icons and Chemistry
*Art and Science
*Russian Enlightenment
Books by Simon Werrett
Chapters examine the following themes:
1. Gunners, Fireworks, and Alchemy
2. Fireworks and Natural Magic
3. Fireworks and the Experimental Philosophy (Robert Boyle)
4. Fireworks in Russia (Mikhail Lomonosov)
5. Italian pyrotechnists in Paris, London, and St. Petersburg (Green Park)
6. Fireworks and the Enlightenment/ Pyrotechnic Theories of Electricity (Diderot)
7. Fireworks as Rational Recreations (Pleasure Gardens)
Papers by Simon Werrett
Topics included:
*Reading the foundation of St. Petersburg through Foucault
*Science and Spectacle
*Cabinets of Curiosities
*Public Science
*Fireworks
*Museums
*Court patronage
*Russian Icons and Chemistry
*Art and Science
*Russian Enlightenment
Chapters examine the following themes:
1. Gunners, Fireworks, and Alchemy
2. Fireworks and Natural Magic
3. Fireworks and the Experimental Philosophy (Robert Boyle)
4. Fireworks in Russia (Mikhail Lomonosov)
5. Italian pyrotechnists in Paris, London, and St. Petersburg (Green Park)
6. Fireworks and the Enlightenment/ Pyrotechnic Theories of Electricity (Diderot)
7. Fireworks as Rational Recreations (Pleasure Gardens)