Theresa Levitt
Biographic Data
| ID | 3785276 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Theresa Levitt |
| GIVEN NAMES | Theresa |
| FAMILY NAME | Levitt |
| SIGNATURE | LEVITT T |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Mississippi |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0685-9495 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 5 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2000 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
When Lighthouses became Public Goods: The Role of Technological Change
A comparison of the French and English lighthouse systems reveals the benefits of state intervention in technological development. The French system, funded by the state, produced major innovations such as the Fresnel lens, and was the first to achieve comprehensive sea-coast lighting. The English system, dominated by private ownership early on, failed to either develop or invest in these innovations. The comparison also sheds light on the emergi…
Les savoirs-mondes: Mobilités et circulation des savoirs depuis le Moyen Âge ed. by Pilar González Bernaldo, Liliane Hilaire-Peréz
Reviewed by: Les savoirs-mondes: Mobilités et circulation des savoirs depuis le Moyen Âge ed. by Pilar González Bernaldo, Liliane Hilaire-Peréz Theresa Levitt (bio) Les savoirs-mondes: Mobilités et circulation des savoirs depuis le Moyen Âge. Edited by Pilar González Bernaldo and Liliane Hilaire-Peréz. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2015. Pp. 514. €25. Les savoirs-mondes is an ambitious attempt to bring a global perspective to the ques…
The Lighthouse at the End of the World Illuminating the French and British Empires
On November 15, 1865, the French inhabitants of New Caledonia gathered together with a number of the island's natives to celebrate the lighting of the lighthouse. It was scheduled to coincide with the saint day of the Empress Eugénie, and the imperial vision rang loudly through Governor Guillain's inaugural address that evening If, transporting ourselves in thought into the different regions of the civilized world, we examine the events transpiri…
Science and Technology beyond the Barricades
Science and Technology beyond the Barricades Theresa Levitt (bio) Robert Fox, The Savant and The State. John Tresch, The Romantic Machine. The history of nineteenth-century French science after Napoleon has long labored under a cloud of decline. For too long, the question "What went wrong?" has crowded out other inquiry, and the standard answer—an overcautious positivism that refused to speak of anything other than observable facts—has made the p…
Liberty, Equality, Technology: Virtuous Inventors and Base Profiteers in the French Industrial Revolution and Beyond
French industrialization, although often treated as trailing behind that of Britain, offers, through its particular characteristics of strong state involvement and political turmoil, an exemplary field for studying the interactions of science, industry, and the state. This essay examines the theme of "disinterestedness" as it runs through the four papers of the special section devoted to French industry. The papers reveal distinct communities of …
The Shadow of Enlightenment
This book is the first to place revolutionary advances in light and optics in the cultural context of France in the first half of the nineteenth century. The narrative follows the work and careers of France's two chief rivals on the subject of light: Arago and Biot. Their disagreement began on the subject of technical optics, but expanded to include politics, religion, agricultural policy, education, dinner companions, housing arrangements, photo…
The shadow of enlightenment: Optical and political transparency in France, 1789-1848
Illuminate All Eyes: Colonial Markets and the Problem of Freedom
This chapter examines the two men's involvement in colonial trade and slavery. Biot developed an optical device — the saccharimeter — that became a crucial part of the colonial sugar industry, used to determine sugar quality. Arago, for his part, was a tireless critic of the plantation system. As the Minister of the Colonies after the Revolution of 1848, he signed into law the definitive abolition of slavery in the French Colonies. He had at firs…
Organizing Sight, Seeing Organization: The Diverging Optical Possibilities of City and Country
This paper contrasts the optical possibilities of a single instrument, the polarimeter, within and without the location of the city. It follows the work of François Arago and Jean-Baptiste Biot in the years after 1821, when, following an explosive argument between the two men, Biot retired to the country and Arago became a prominent figure of Parisian salon life. The different cultural spaces they inhabited had distinct rules of communication in …
Biot's Paper and Arago's Plates: Photographic Practice and the Transparency of Representation
François Arago and Jean-Baptiste Biot, two of the physicists most involved in early photography, mobilized this new technology for their ongoing debates about the proper boundaries of the public in France. Each threw his weight behind one of the competing photographic processes, Arago supporting daguerrian silver plates and Biot favoring paper soaked in silver solution. For both men, disagreement at the level of materials and techniques was furth…
Editing out caloric: Fresnel, Arago and the meaning of light
Augustin Fresnel and François Arago are typically credited with jointly establishing the wave theory of light in early nineteenth-century France. Yet the two men, working in different traditions, brought to their collaboration vastly different conceptions of what light was and how it should be studied. This paper traces the work that went into co-ordinating these disparate approaches into a united front, as well as the dissolution of the alliance…
Biot's Paper and Arago's Plates: Photographic Practice and the Transparency of Representation
François Arago and Jean-Baptiste Biot, two of the physicists most involved in early photography, mobilized this new technology for their ongoing debates about the proper boundaries of the public in France. Each threw his weight behind one of the competing photographic processes, Arago supporting daguerrian silver plates and Biot favoring paper soaked in silver solution. For both men, disagreement at the level of materials and techniques was furth…
When Lighthouses became Public Goods: The Role of Technological Change
A comparison of the French and English lighthouse systems reveals the benefits of state intervention in technological development. The French system, funded by the state, produced major innovations such as the Fresnel lens, and was the first to achieve comprehensive sea-coast lighting. The English system, dominated by private ownership early on, failed to either develop or invest in these innovations. The comparison also sheds light on the emergi…
Science and Technology beyond the Barricades
Science and Technology beyond the Barricades Theresa Levitt (bio) Robert Fox, The Savant and The State. John Tresch, The Romantic Machine. The history of nineteenth-century French science after Napoleon has long labored under a cloud of decline. For too long, the question "What went wrong?" has crowded out other inquiry, and the standard answer—an overcautious positivism that refused to speak of anything other than observable facts—has made the p…
Editing out caloric: Fresnel, Arago and the meaning of light
Augustin Fresnel and François Arago are typically credited with jointly establishing the wave theory of light in early nineteenth-century France. Yet the two men, working in different traditions, brought to their collaboration vastly different conceptions of what light was and how it should be studied. This paper traces the work that went into co-ordinating these disparate approaches into a united front, as well as the dissolution of the alliance…
Organizing Sight, Seeing Organization: The Diverging Optical Possibilities of City and Country
This paper contrasts the optical possibilities of a single instrument, the polarimeter, within and without the location of the city. It follows the work of François Arago and Jean-Baptiste Biot in the years after 1821, when, following an explosive argument between the two men, Biot retired to the country and Arago became a prominent figure of Parisian salon life. The different cultural spaces they inhabited had distinct rules of communication in …
Biot's Paper and Arago's Plates: Photographic Practice and the Transparency of Representation
François Arago and Jean-Baptiste Biot, two of the physicists most involved in early photography, mobilized this new technology for their ongoing debates about the proper boundaries of the public in France. Each threw his weight behind one of the competing photographic processes, Arago supporting daguerrian silver plates and Biot favoring paper soaked in silver solution. For both men, disagreement at the level of materials and techniques was furth…
The Shadow of Enlightenment
This book is the first to place revolutionary advances in light and optics in the cultural context of France in the first half of the nineteenth century. The narrative follows the work and careers of France's two chief rivals on the subject of light: Arago and Biot. Their disagreement began on the subject of technical optics, but expanded to include politics, religion, agricultural policy, education, dinner companions, housing arrangements, photo…
The shadow of enlightenment: Optical and political transparency in France, 1789-1848
Illuminate All Eyes: Colonial Markets and the Problem of Freedom
This chapter examines the two men's involvement in colonial trade and slavery. Biot developed an optical device — the saccharimeter — that became a crucial part of the colonial sugar industry, used to determine sugar quality. Arago, for his part, was a tireless critic of the plantation system. As the Minister of the Colonies after the Revolution of 1848, he signed into law the definitive abolition of slavery in the French Colonies. He had at firs…
Science and Technology beyond the Barricades
Science and Technology beyond the Barricades Theresa Levitt (bio) Robert Fox, The Savant and The State. John Tresch, The Romantic Machine. The history of nineteenth-century French science after Napoleon has long labored under a cloud of decline. For too long, the question "What went wrong?" has crowded out other inquiry, and the standard answer—an overcautious positivism that refused to speak of anything other than observable facts—has made the p…
Liberty, Equality, Technology: Virtuous Inventors and Base Profiteers in the French Industrial Revolution and Beyond
French industrialization, although often treated as trailing behind that of Britain, offers, through its particular characteristics of strong state involvement and political turmoil, an exemplary field for studying the interactions of science, industry, and the state. This essay examines the theme of "disinterestedness" as it runs through the four papers of the special section devoted to French industry. The papers reveal distinct communities of …
The Lighthouse at the End of the World Illuminating the French and British Empires
On November 15, 1865, the French inhabitants of New Caledonia gathered together with a number of the island's natives to celebrate the lighting of the lighthouse. It was scheduled to coincide with the saint day of the Empress Eugénie, and the imperial vision rang loudly through Governor Guillain's inaugural address that evening If, transporting ourselves in thought into the different regions of the civilized world, we examine the events transpiri…
Les savoirs-mondes: Mobilités et circulation des savoirs depuis le Moyen Âge ed. by Pilar González Bernaldo, Liliane Hilaire-Peréz
Reviewed by: Les savoirs-mondes: Mobilités et circulation des savoirs depuis le Moyen Âge ed. by Pilar González Bernaldo, Liliane Hilaire-Peréz Theresa Levitt (bio) Les savoirs-mondes: Mobilités et circulation des savoirs depuis le Moyen Âge. Edited by Pilar González Bernaldo and Liliane Hilaire-Peréz. Rennes: Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2015. Pp. 514. €25. Les savoirs-mondes is an ambitious attempt to bring a global perspective to the ques…
When Lighthouses became Public Goods: The Role of Technological Change
A comparison of the French and English lighthouse systems reveals the benefits of state intervention in technological development. The French system, funded by the state, produced major innovations such as the Fresnel lens, and was the first to achieve comprehensive sea-coast lighting. The English system, dominated by private ownership early on, failed to either develop or invest in these innovations. The comparison also sheds light on the emergi…
Law (8 works) · Political science (8 works) · Art (6 works) · History (6 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Politics (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · History of Science and Medicine (4 works) · History of Science and Natural History (4 works)