Migratory movements: evolutionary theory in the works of J.M. Synge

Synge's interest in evolutionary theory is well-documented, and his plays are often viewed as representations of an Irish culture in decline. In response, this article argues that Synge's tramps, tinkers, and outcasts function as figures for species migration and cultural renewal. To demonstrate that Synge's drama has a footing in the science of speciation, the article details the extent to which Synge was directly familiar with works of evolutionary theory. Although he read Darwin and Herbert Spencer at about the same time, their respective influences show up at much different stages of his literary career. While Synge's earliest prose is most strongly influenced by Spencer's progressivist interpretation of evolution, Synge's Spencerianism soon gives way to a Darwinian interest in the bizarre affinities between the human and animal worlds, as well as to an appreciation of difference rather than a fetishisation of fitness.     

The Darwinian Rhetoric of Science in Petr Kropotkin's Mutual Aid. A Factor of Evolution (1902)

The paper explores the significance of rhetorical argumentation in Petr Kropotkin's treatise Mutual Aid. A Factor of Evolution (1902). It argues that Kropotkin's work is steeped in the tradition of a rhetoric of science that is profoundly Darwinian and in which various forms of analogic reasoning play a central role. After explaining the epistemic function of the metaphors “struggle for existence” and “mutual aid,” the paper analyses Kropotkin's argumentation strategies and offers an interpretation of them as a further development and reworking of Darwinian rhetoric.     

Race,polygenesis and equality: John Crawfurd and nineteenth-century resistance to evolution

The nineteenth-century Orientalist and ethnologist, John Crawfurd, publicly rejected Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution in 1868. Crawfurd was a leading advocate of polygenesis but also a supporter of racial equality. In 1820 he published his History of the Indian Archipelago, where he advocated granting household suffrage to all races in the British colonies. After finishing a career in the East India Company in 1828 he became the foremost expert on South-East Asia in Britain. Crawfurd became a regular writer on ethnology and Asian affairs for the Examiner newspaper and in the 1860s he was President of the Ethnological Society of London. Accounts of nineteenth-century anthropology in Britain characterise debate around race as falling into two camps: advocates of monogenesis and advocates of polygenesis. In the United States of America, advocates of polygenesis were often associated with advocates of slavery and racial inequality. Recent research has demonstrated that Charles Darwin’s hatred of slavery drove him to write Origin of the Species to demonstrate the unity of the human species and reject the polygenesis position. This paper explores Crawfurd’s ideas and demonstrates that a belief in polygenesis in the nineteenth century did not necessarily equate with a belief in racial inequality.     

Ithaca transfer

Historiography has never been considered as a source of Veblen's thought. This essay draws on previously unknown archival evidence regarding Veblen's experience at Cornell, where he asked to be enrolled as a Ph.D. student in ‘History and Political Science’ in 1891, to shed light on his relationship with both British and American institutional historiography. It is argued that Veblen's studies at this university, under the influence of local historians, is crucial to understanding his later work, particularly his theory of the leisure class, for two fundamental reasons: (1) Cornell was unique for its tendency to combine the study of history with that of politics and society at a time when historiography tended to emancipate itself from the social sciences; (2) Cornell was one of the main epicentres for the diffusion of British historiography in America. Veblen's theory of the leisure class, to which he devoted his first article at Cornell, is thus presented as the fruit of his effort to reassess the historiographical idea of evolution, against its applications by philosophers, by insisting on the importance of path-dependent mentalities and by differentiating the evolutionary pattern followed by political and social institutions, on the one hand, from economic institutions on the other.     

Prison Heritage,Public History and Archaeology at Fannie Bay Gaol,Northern Australia

Prisons play an important role in the Australian psyche. As places in which the lawless element of society is incarcerated they possess a resonance that harks back to the stereotyped and mythologised convict foundations of the Australian nation. Many former places of confinement have been transformed into publicly accessible heritage sites and museums, but visitor numbers often do not reflect the widespread public interest in confinement. It is not at all clear how to engage the public with the individual histories of these places. This paper examines this issue by reference to the public display of Fannie Bay Gaol prison museum in Darwin. Changing themes and foci in the display of this site are discussed. The role of the historian and archaeologist is examined in the context of the public presentation of narratives of the Gaol's past.     

Darwin Wept: Science and the Sentimental Subject

Could a man of science be sentimental in an age of objectivity, when emotions were largely purged from the field of Victorian science, and feelings themselves defined as animal instincts and reflex mechanisms? This essay addresses the question through Darwin's work on the expression of emotions, and the relationship between his work and his own emotional experience, with particular attention to grief and tears. An old woman in a railway carriage is suddenly overcome with a painful recollection, perhaps that of a long lost child – her mouth becomes ever so slightly contracted, her countenance falls, her eyes suffuse with tears … . An opthalmic surgeon perseveres with his treatise on the physiology of weeping while mourning the loss of his daughter … . With difficulty, a mother prolongs her infant son's screaming in order to record the shape of his mouth for a family friend and famous naturalist … . Her observations later appear in a work on emotional expression (Darwin's), together with photographs of sobbing children, and faces of a psychiatric patient charged with electrodes. Such subject matter, presented in correspondence, private journals, and print, suggest that science and sentimentality could form a more reciprocal pair, where observation was conducted in a sentimental setting, the feelings of observers regulated but not withheld, processed by an experimental regime, and then reinserted in the domain of print, reconfiguring the sentimental for Victorian readers.     

Earthquakes and Petticoats: Maria Graham,Geology, and Early Nineteenth-Century ‘Polite’ Science

Re-visiting the controversy caused by the first female-authored report in the Transactions of the Geological Society, this article probes the gendered layers of the early nineteenth-century scientific community. Maria Graham's ‘Account of Some Effects of the Late Earthquakes in Chili [sic]’ (1824) had considerable influence, and was referred to by Charles Lyell and Charles Darwin. In 1834, however, George Greenough, President of the Geological Society, questioned the accuracy of Graham's observations. Graham in turn defended herself adroitly, in an acrimonious exchange which found an international audience. While this dispute has received some attention from historians of science, previous discussions assume that Graham was no geologist, but simply a traveller who witnessed events of great relevance to contemporary geology. Drawing on extensive archival research, this article demonstrates to the contrary that Graham had considerable interest and expertise in this branch of science. Using the dispute to shed light on the multiple milieux in which early nineteenth-century science took place, it explores the constraints and opportunities faced by women with scientific interests, and the rhetorical strategies required of them, as they negotiated the diverse modes of contemporary science. It also highlights little-known networks of friendship, correspondence and intellectual exchange between scientifically minded women.     

Sleepwalking through History: Medicine,Arts, and Courts of Law

Somnambulism, or sleepwalking, has always been of interest to theologians, writers, philosophers, physicians, and others fascinated by unusual behaviors. This parasomnia, which was defined less precisely in the past than it is today, has long been featured in medical dissertations and books of medicine. Further, Shakespeare, Bellini, and Brown, among others, incorporated it into their plays, operas, and novels. Because some somnambulists turned violent and committed other acts detrimental to society, sleepwalking also demanded attention from legal systems, and guidelines were set for whether somnambulists could be held responsible for their actions. This historical review focuses on these developments pertaining to somnambulism through the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.     

Exotericism and the Untroubled Race for the Future

Abstract

The simple case against the philosophic practice of exoteric writing is that it takes too long. Especially short of time are those who would contribute to or even attempt to keep up with the advance of what used to be called natural philosophy. The assumption of progress in science has been purchased with the relentless specialization of its practitioners. In theory transparent to inquiry, in practice specialized, science may be not just anti-exoteric but esoteric.