Scholars in action : the practice of knowledge and the figure of the savant in the 18th century / / edited by André Holenstein, Hubert Steinke, and Martin Stuber.

• Superior document: History of Science and Medicine Library ; Volume 34/1
• TeilnehmendeR: Holenstein, André.; Steinke, Hubert.; Stuber, Martin.
• Year of Publication: 2013
• Language: English
• Series: History of science and medicine library ; Volume 34/1.; Scientific and learned cultures and their institutions ; 9.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (962 p.)
• Notes: Includes index.

Scholars in Action addresses the complexities of the culture of knowledge, focusing on the scholar, or savant, as its main actor. The book explores how, and to what end, savants in the 18th Century collated, produced, critiqued, propagated, diffused, and applied knowledge. Investigating scholars’ diverse practices of knowledge, the volume’s six sections are organised around central scholarly activities: rising and advancing, reading and judging, perceiving and reacting, printing and communicating, observing and experimenting, as well as advising and serving. Based on a wide range of sources and looking at a great variety of savants, an international group of 40 authors open up new perspectives on eighteenth-century scholars and scholarship. Contributors include Kirill Abrosimov, Gunhild Berg, Thomas Biskup, Holger Böning, Simona Boscani-Leoni, Barbara Braun-Bucher, Laurence Brockliss, Florence Catherine, Lorraine Daston, Simone De Angelis, Bettina Dietz, Clorinda Donato, Claudia Engler, Iris Flessenkaemper, Daniel Fulda, Marian Füssel, Martin Gierl, Rainer Godel, Karl S. Guthke, Thomas Habel, Caspar Hirschi, László Kontler, Urs Leu, Annette Meyer, Marion Mücke, Miriam Nicoli, Andreas Önnerfors, Hole Rössler, Anne Saada, Torsten Sander, Hartmut Schleiff, Ulrich Johannes Schneider, Reinhart Siegert, René Sigrist, Justin Stagl, Regula Wyss, and Simone Zurbuchen.

Table of Contents

Preliminary Material -- Introduction: Practices of Knowledge and the Figure of the Scholar in the Eighteenth Century / André Holenstein , Hubert Steinke and Martin Stuber -- Transnational Careers in the Service of Empire: German Natural Historians in Eighteenth-Century London / Thomas Biskup -- Starting-Out, Getting-On and Becoming Famous in the Eighteenth-Century Republic of Letters / Laurence Brockliss -- From Aristocratic Support to Academic Office: Patronage and University in the Scottish Enlightenment / Iris Fleßenkämper -- "On the Means of Becoming Famous in the Learned World": Practices in Scholarly Constitution of Status and the Emergence of a Moral Economy of Knowledge in the Eighteenth Century / Marian Füssel -- Compiler into Genius. The Transformation of Dictionary Writers in Eighteenth-Century France and England / Caspar Hirschi -- Between Status Attainment and Professional Dialogue: The Significance of Membership in the Leopoldina in 1750 / Marion Mücke -- Jöcher’s Anthropology of Scholars / Ulrich Johannes Schneider -- On Some Social Characteristics of the Eighteenth-Century Botanists / René Sigrist -- Usurped Intentions: The Reception of Albrecht von Haller’s Writings in France / Florence Catherine -- Albrecht von Haller as Librarian: Searching and Finding in the Universe of Books / Claudia Engler -- Change of Paradigm as a Squabble between Institutions: The Institute of Historical Sciences, the Society of Sciences, and the Separation of Cultural and Natural Sciences in Göttingen in the Second Half of the Eighteenth Century / Martin Gierl -- Wilhelm Ernst Tentzel as a Precursor of Learned Journalism in Germany: Monatliche Unterredungen and Curieuse Bibliothec / Thomas Habel -- Albrecht von Haller’s Contribution to the Göttingische Anzeigen von Gelehrten Sachen: The Accounting Records / Anne Saada -- Samuel Engels’s Bibliotheca selectissima (1743). "Rarity" as a Criterion of Knowledge and Its Classification / Torsten Sander -- The philosophe as a Virtuoso of Communication: Media, Spaces and Strategies in Voltaire’s Practice of Communication during the "Calas Affair" / Kirill Abrosimov -- Communication and Reputation. Correspondences between the Scientific Cultures in the Eighteenth and Twenty-first Centuries / Daniel Fulda -- Controversy as the Impetus of Enlightened Practice of Knowledge / Rainer Godel -- Secret Savants, Savant Secrets: The Concept of Science in the Imagination of European Freemasonry / Andreas Önnerfors -- Character Masks of Scholarship: Self-Representation and Self-Experiment as Practices of Knowledge around 1770 / Hole Rößler -- Reacting to Rousseau: Difficult Relations between Erudition and Politics in the Swiss Republics / Simone Zurbuchen -- Men of Exchange: Creation and Circulation of Knowledge in the Swiss Republics of the Eighteenth Century / Simona Boscani Leoni -- Illustrious Connections: The Premises and Practices of Knowledge Transfer between Switzerland and the Italian Peninsula / Clorinda Donato -- At Home in the World: The Savant in the Service of Global Education / Karl S. Guthke -- Research Practices in the Early Eighteenth Century: The Example of Johann Jakob Scheuchzer / Urs B. Leu.