Science and Power in the Nineteenth-Century Tasman World

Science and Power in the Nineteenth-Century Tasman World
Author :
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
Total Pages : 291
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9781009021098
ISBN-13 : 1009021095
Rating : 4/5 (98 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Science and Power in the Nineteenth-Century Tasman World by : Alexandra Roginski

Download or read book Science and Power in the Nineteenth-Century Tasman World written by Alexandra Roginski and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2023-05-31 with total page 291 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contentious science of phrenology once promised insight into character and intellect through external 'reading' of the head. In the transforming settler-colonial landscapes of nineteenth-century Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand, popular phrenologists – figures who often hailed from the margins – performed their science of touch and cranial jargon everywhere from mechanics' institutions to public houses. In this compelling work, Alexandra Roginski recounts a history of this everyday practice, exploring how it featured in the fates of people living in, and moving through, the Tasman World. Innovatively drawing on historical newspapers and a network of archives, she traces the careers of a diverse range of popular phrenologists and those they encountered. By analysing the actions at play in scientific episodes through ethnographic, social and cultural history, Roginski considers how this now-discredited science could, in its own day, yield fleeting power and advantage, even against a backdrop of large-scale dispossession and social brittleness.


Science and Power in the Nineteenth-Century Tasman World Related Books