Bernard Vise Lightman, FRSC (born April 30, 1950) is a Canadian historian, and professor of humanities and science and technology studies at York University, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. He specializes in the relationship between Victorian science and unbelief, the role of women in science, and the popularization of science.
Lightman is known for his work as the editor of the journal Isis[1] (2004 to present) as well as his role in the Tyndall project, an effort to make available the life and letters of the nineteenth-century scientist John Tyndall.[2][3] Lightman has received several awards and honours. For example, on November 26, 2011, he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Canada[4] and on December 4, 2010, he was elected a Corresponding Member of the International Academy of the History of Science.[5]
Life and works
Lightman began his career studying Victorian agnosticism amongst prominent scientific naturalists, including such figures as Thomas Henry Huxley and John Tyndall. The focus of this work was on the ways in which early agnostics did not simply see their title as a mask for atheism, but instead based it on an understanding of the epistemology of the German philosopher Immanuel Kant.[6] Since 1989, Lightman's work has largely focused on the popularization of science and particularly on the role that Victorian periodicals and print culture played in shaping the form of scientific debates in the public arena.
Lightman has authored, co-authored and edited several books, and has published more than 44 refereed articles and book-chapter.[7]The John Tyndall Correspondence Project, which is an international collaborative effort to obtain, digitalize, transcribe, and publish all surviving letters to and from John Tyndall, was initiated by Lightman. He is currently working on a biography of John Tyndall and is a general editor on the project.[8] In addition, he is the editor of a book series titled 'Science and Culture in the Nineteenth Century' published by the University of Pittsburgh Press.
At York University, Lightman has been appointed to a number of administrative positions over the years, including associate dean of arts, acting director of academic staff relation, coordinator of the interdisciplinary program science and society, and director of the graduate program in humanities.[9]
Selected works
Evolutionary Naturalism in Victorian Britain: The 'Darwinians' and Their Critics. Variorum Collected Studies Series. Burlington, Vermont, USA; Farnham, Surrey, England: Ashgate, 2009.
Science in the Marketplace: Nineteenth-Century Sites and Experiences. Co-edited with Aileen Fyfe. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Victorian Popularizers of Science: Designing Nature for New Audiences. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.[10]
Figuring it Out: Science, Gender and Visual Culture. Co-edited with Ann Shteir. Hanover, New Hampshire: Dartmouth College Press; Hanover and London: University Press of New England, 2006.
"Science and Religion in Modern Western Thought." Co-edited with Bernard Zelechow. Special theme issue of The European Legacy: 1, No. 5 (August 1996).
Victorian Faith in Crisis: Essays on Continuity and Change in Nineteenth Century Religious Belief. Co-edited with Richard Helmstadter. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press; London: Macmillan Press, 1990.
The Origins of Agnosticism: Victorian Unbelief and the Limits of Knowledge. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.
↑ Moore, James R. Review: "The Origins of Agnosticism: Victorian Unbelief and the Limits of Knowledge by Bernard Lightman", In Isis Vol. 79, No. 3, A Special Issue on Artifact and Experiment (Sept., 1988). PP. 510-511.
John TyndallFRS (; 2 August 1820 – 4 December 1893) was a prominent 19th-century Irish physicist. His scientific fame arose in the 1850s from his study of diamagnetism. Later he made discoveries in the realms of infrared radiation and the physical properties of air, proving the connection between atmospheric CO2 and what is now known as the greenhouse effect in 1859.
The Metaphysical Society was a famous British debating society, founded in 1869 by James Knowles, who acted as Secretary. Membership was by invitation only, and was exclusively male. Many of its members were prominent clergymen, philosophers, and politicians.
The Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge (SDUK) was founded in London in 1826, mainly at the instigation of Whig MP Henry Brougham, with the object of publishing information to people who were unable to obtain formal teaching or who preferred self-education. It was a largely Whig organisation, and published inexpensive texts intended to adapt scientific and similarly high-minded material for the rapidly-expanding reading public over twenty years until it was disbanded in 1846.
Mary Louise Poovey is an American cultural historian and literary critic whose work focuses on the Victorian Era. She is currently Samuel Rudin University Professor in the Humanities at New York University, and Director of the Institute for the History of the Production of Knowledge. Poovey has taught at Johns Hopkins University, Swarthmore College, and Yale University.
Isis is a quarterly peer-reviewed academic journal published by the University of Chicago Press. It covers the history of science, history of medicine, and the history of technology, as well as their cultural influences. It contains original research articles and extensive book reviews and review essays. Furthermore, sections devoted to one particular topic are published in each issue in open access. These sections consist of the Focus section, the Viewpoint section and the Second Look section.
Ebenezer Cobham Brewer, was a British lexicographer and the author of A Guide to the Scientific Knowledge of Things Familiar, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, and The Reader's Handbook, among other reference books.
Edward Clodd was an English banker, writer and anthropologist. He had a great variety of literary and scientific friends, who periodically met at Whitsunday gatherings at his home at Aldeburgh in Suffolk.
Ronald Leslie Numbers is an American historian of science. He was awarded the 2008 George Sarton Medal by the History of Science Society for "a lifetime of exceptional scholarly achievement by a distinguished scholar".
The Bridgewater Treatises (1833–36) are a series of eight works that were written by leading scientific figures appointed by the President of the Royal Society in fulfilment of a bequest of £8000, made by Francis Henry Egerton, 8th Earl of Bridgewater, for a work on "the Power, Wisdom, and Goodness of God, as manifested in the Creation." Despite being voluminous and costly, the series was very widely read and discussed, becoming one of the most important contributions to the Victorian literature on the relationship between religion and science. They made such an impact that Charles Darwin began On the Origin of Species with a quotation from the Bridgewater Treatise of William Whewell.
Robert Elsmere is a novel by Mrs. Humphry Ward published in 1888. It was immediately successful, quickly selling over a million copies and gaining the admiration of Henry James.
David Page FRSE FGS LLD (1814–1879) was a 19th-century Scottish geologist and scientific author. He was President of the Edinburgh Geological Society.
Thomas John "Jock" Murray is a Canadian neurologist, medical historian and author.
Elizabeth Kirby (1823–1873) and Mary Kirby were successful English writers and illustrators of books for children and books on natural science. Mary Kirby is known particularly for leading the crowd-sourced Flora of Leicestershire and Elizabeth for her children's books. They both had a lifelong writing partnership that popularised science. Mary is thought to be one of the first British woman to publish a scientific study of the flora of her county in the nineteenth century.
Henry Neville Hutchinson was an Anglican clergyman and, during the 1890s, a leading writer of popular books on geology, palaeontology, evolution and anthropology.
Alice Brooke Bodington or Alice Brook was a British Canadian science writer who wrote about biology, evolution and race.
Aileen Fyfe is a historian.
James Andrew Secord is an American-born historian. He is a professor of history and philosophy of science within the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at the University of Cambridge, and a fellow of Christ's College. He is also the director of the project to publish the complete Correspondence of Charles Darwin. Secord is especially well known for his award-winning work on the reception of the anonymous Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation, a pioneering evolutionary book first published in 1844.
Michael Rectenwald is an American scholar who has taught at several institutions, most notably at New York University (NYU). Although his scholarship has focused primarily on 19th-century British secularism, contemporary secularism, and the 19th-century freethought movement, he may be best known as a critic of the contemporary social justice movement and its effects in the academy, as he describes in his memoir, Springtime for Snowflakes: Social Justice and Its Postmodern Parentage, published in 2018.
The Reader was a British weekly published from 1863 to 1867. Intended as a review journal, for both science and literature, it has been called "probably the last attempt, in Victorian England, to keep together liberal scientists, theologians, and men of letters."
Richard Bithell was an English agnostic philosopher and writer.
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