Old Email Archive

digest 2003-07-25 #001.txt

litsci-l-digest         Friday, July 25 2003         Volume 01 : Number
040



In this issue:

     Fwd: Re: SLS: Paris 2004
     Book announcement: 'Affinity, That Elusive Dream'

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Date: Sun, 20 Jul 2003 14:07:49 +0000
From: "Carol Colatrella" 
Subject: Fwd: Re: SLS: Paris 2004

..>From: jal@its.caltech.edu 
>To: "Carol Colatrella" 
>Subject: Re: SLS: Paris 2004
>Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 09:16:18 -0700
>
>Carol:
>
>I've received the first info on next year's Paris meeting, dates and
theme, 
>from Yves Abrioux.  Could you please post this on your e-mail list (and
on 
>litsci-l), with a note that more details will follow soon?  Thanks.
>
>Jay
>
>Conference dates.
>Wed. June 23rd  -  Sat. 26th, 2004
>
>Conference theme.
>Conversation : Enacting New Synergies in Arts and Sciences
>--
>Jay A. Labinger
>Beckman Institute
>California Institute of Technology
>139-74
>Pasadena, CA 91125
>tel: 626-395-6520
>fax: 626-449-4159

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------------------------------

Date: Fri, 25 Jul 2003 12:20:51 -0400
From: "Wayne Miller" 
Subject: Book announcement: 'Affinity, That Elusive Dream'

From David Weininger :

I thought readers of the Society for Literature and Science might be =
interested in this book.  For more information please visit
http://mitpress= 
.mit.edu/0262112736

Affinity, That Elusive Dream
A Genealogy of the Chemical Revolution
Mi Gyung Kim

In the eighteenth century, chemistry was transformed from an art to a =
public science. Chemical affinity played an important role as a
metaphor, =
a theory domain, and a subject of investigation. Goethe's Elective =
Affinities, which was based on the current understanding of chemical =
affinities, attests to chemistry's presence in the public imagination.
In =
Affinity, That Elusive Dream, Mi Gyung Kim restores chemical affinity to
=
its proper place in historiography and in Enlightenment public culture.

The Chemical Revolution is usually associated with Antoine-Laurent =
Lavoisier, who introduced a modern nomenclature and a definitive text.
Kim =
argues that chemical affinity was erased from the historical memory by =
Lavoisier's omission of it from his textbook. Examining the work of many
=
less famous French chemists (including physicians, apothecaries,
metallurgi=
sts, philosophical chemists, and industrial chemists), she examines the
=
institutional context of chemical instruction and research, the social =
stratification that shaped theoretical discourse, and the crucial shifts
=
in analytic methods. Apothecaries and metallurgists, she shows, shaped
the =
main theory domains through their innovative approach to analysis. =
Academicians and philosophical chemists brought about two transformative
=
theoretical moments through their efforts to create a rational discourse
=
of chemistry in tune with the reigning natural philosophy.

The topics discussed include the corpuscular (Cartesian) model in French
=
chemistry in the early 1700s, the stabilization of the theory domains of
=
composition and affinity, the reconstruction of French theoretical =
discourse in the middle of the eighteenth century, the Newtonian
languages =
that plagued the domain of affinity just before the Chemical Revolution,
=
Guyton de Morveau's program of affinity chemistry, Lavoisier's
reconstructi=
on of the theory domains of chemistry, and Berthollet's path as an =
affinity chemist.

Mi Gyung Kim is Associate Professor of History at North Carolina State =
University.

6 x 9, 624 pp., 16 illus., cloth, ISBN 0-262-11273-6

Transformations series

______________________
David Weininger
Associate Publicist
The MIT Press
5 Cambridge Center, 4th Floor
Cambridge, MA  02142
617 253 2079
617 253 1709 fax


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End of litsci-l-digest V1 #40
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