Unit name | From Balloons to the Beagle: Exploration, Discovery and Invention in the Romantic Age c.1780 - c.1835 (Special Field) |
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Unit code | HIST26025 |
Credit points | 20 |
Level of study | I/5 |
Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24) |
Unit director | Professor. MacLeod |
Open unit status | Not open |
Pre-requisites |
None |
Co-requisites |
None |
School/department | Department of History (Historical Studies) |
Faculty | Faculty of Arts |
When a hot-air balloon rose into the skies above Paris on 21 November 1783, humanity's dream of flying was finally achieved. The most spectacular experiment yet witnessed by a society entranced by scientific spectacle, ballooning symbolized the flights of imagination which characterized the Romantic age and which make its poetry and paintings a surprisingly good source for historians of science. It was by no means alone, however, in offering new perspectives on the heavens or the earth and its inhabitants. By the time that Charles Darwin set sail in the Beagle in 1831, discoveries in astronomy, geology, chemistry, electricity and biology were prompting new questions about the age of the earth, the origins of life and the uniqueness of humanity that seemed increasingly at odds with biblical accounts. Using contemporary texts and images, we will explore these discoveries and debates (primarily in Britain) and analyse their cultural significance.
Aims:
By the end of the unit students should have:
1 x 2 hour exam
S. Bainbridge (ed.), Romanticism: a source book (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008)
P. J. Bowler and I. R. Morus, Making Modern Science: a historical survey (University of Chicago Press, 2005)
D. Cadbury, The Dinosaur Hunters: a true story of scientific rivalry and the discovery of the prehistoric world (Fourth Estate, 2000)
R. Hamblyn, The Invention of Clouds: how an amateur meteorologist forged the language of the skies (Picador, 2001)
R. Holmes, The Age of Wonder: how the Romantic generation discovered the beauty and terror of science (Harper Press, 2008)
J. Uglow, The Lunar Men: the friends who made the future, 1730-1810 (Faber, 2002)