Beyond the Shadow of the Telescope: Recontextualizing John Herschel

The British natural philosopher John Herschel (1792–1871) remains a paradoxical figure in the historiography of modern science: simultaneously recognized as pivotal in the development and professionalization of modern science while curiously under-examined. Herschel’s career spanned fields from astronomy to chemistry and optics to the first writings in English on scientific methodology (his 1831 Preliminary Discourse on the Study of Natural Philosophy) at a period in which these fields were first becoming professionalized. He had leadership roles in the Royal Astronomical Society, the Royal Society, and BAAS, while his popular textbooks were translated into dozens of languages and were the means by which a new reading public formed their views on science and its practice. His investigations in large part defined what it meant to “do science” throughout the Victorian period. This panel offers the opportunity to recontextualize Herschel’s work and discuss recent scholarship on Herschel and remaining questions. Herschel’s influence during his lifetime, his extensive published corpus, and the immense amount of surviving correspondence and archival materials make him an important means of investigating a wide array of issues of interest to historians of science. In this panel, participants will briefly summarize their recent scholarship on Herschel with an eye to discussion on avenues for using Herschel’s life to address broader scholarly questions and themes. One goal of the panel will be to catalyze interest and generate new approaches in advance of a planned conference on John Herschel to commemorate the 150th anniversary of his death in 2021.