- Paperback: 280 pages
- Publisher: Cambridge University Press; 1st ed edition (22 Oct 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0521626722
- ISBN-13: 978-0521626729
- Product Dimensions: 2.3 x 1.5 x 0.2 cm
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,274,466 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
Mary Somerville
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Product Description
Review
'Kathryn Neeley explores Somerville's unique position: she was accepted as an eminent scientist, but also celebrated for the way she conformed to Victorian norms of womanly behaviour.' The Lancet
'Underneath the now statutory feminist gloss this is a work of great scholarship.' Contemporary Review
'Neeley's study repays careful reading and is a valuable contribution to studies of discourse, writing and gender in nineteenth-century science.' BJHS
'Neeley has provided scholars with an absorbing and definitive intellectual biography of Mary Somerville, arguably the most important woman in science during the nineteenth-century … In sum, Neeley's book is a welcome addition to the growing bodies of scholarship re-interpreting the role of women in science, examining the relationship between science and literature, and exploring the importance of popular science.' Centauras
'Underneath the now statutory feminist gloss this is a work of great scholarship.' Contemporary Review
'Neeley's study repays careful reading and is a valuable contribution to studies of discourse, writing and gender in nineteenth-century science.' BJHS
'Neeley has provided scholars with an absorbing and definitive intellectual biography of Mary Somerville, arguably the most important woman in science during the nineteenth-century … In sum, Neeley's book is a welcome addition to the growing bodies of scholarship re-interpreting the role of women in science, examining the relationship between science and literature, and exploring the importance of popular science.' Centauras
Product Description
In an era when science was perceived as a male domain, Mary Somerville (1780–1872) became both the leading woman scientist of her day and an integral part of the British scientific community. She achieved this status through careful management of her gender identity and by creating rich, readable, and authoritative accounts of science that were rhetorically compelling, aesthetically satisfying, and valuable to the scientific community in the UK and abroad. This 2001 biography offers detailed analysis of the underlying patterns, themes, and rhetorical strategies of her major works and argues that Somerville employed a transcendent feminine style that retained the advantages but transcended the limitations usually associated with women's ways of knowing. The book advocates a new narrative for women's participation in science and demonstrates the many ways that gender relates to science and science functions in culture.
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Mary Somerville was an eminent scientist. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
Mary Somerville was an eminent scientist. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Florid, turgid prose
29 Jun 2004
Format:Hardcover
A very distinguished female scientist, in whose long life of 92 years, she experienced and contributed to Victorian science. Neeley takes us back to that era. She shows how Somerville became well known to the educated via such books as "Mechanism of the Heavens" (1831) and "On the Connexion of the Physical Sciences" (1834). They were well received and helped popularise science, and also the (shocking!) concept that a woman could write such analytic prose. That such deeds were not a male preserve.
To be sure, from our vantage point, some of Somerville's analyses may seem strained. Prior to James Maxwell's discoveries of his equations that unified electricity and magnetism, those effects could only be treated in a vague, qualitative fashion. Neeley's excerpts of Somerville's writings reveal this. Along with a florid, turgid style. But keep in mind that this was the accepted style of that era. And until Maxwell came along, her speculations were arguably the best any scientist could do.
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