front cover of History of Women in the Sciences
History of Women in the Sciences
Readings from Isis
Edited by Sally Gregory Kohlstedt
University of Chicago Press, 2000
Why is it that some women have created successful careers in science, when historically there have been so many barriers that exclude women from engaging in scientific work? At last, here is a comparative history that illuminates some of the patterns that have emerged in the history of women in science.

This book features some of the most influential and pioneering studies of women in the sciences, with a special focus on patterns of education, access, barriers, and opportunities for women's work in science. Spanning the 17th through the 20th centuries, the book demonstrates the meaning and power of gender experienced by women in the sciences.

Individual chapters focus on exceptional women whose unusual initiativee and particular circumstance led them to engage in science: Laura Bassi, Nettie Stevens, Maria Winkelmann, and others. Chapters on women's access to science discuss collaboration with family members in the domestic sphere, the impact of primers and popular science writing, and formal education in public schools and advanced research institutions. There are examinations of the reasons for clusters of women working in "female friendly" sciences such as botany and physiology in the 19th century and astronomy in the U.S. during the early 20th century.

This important and useful book provides a thoughtful and detailed overview for scholars and students in the history of science, as well as for feminist historians, scientists, and others who who want a comparative and historical analysis of women in the sciences.

Contributors include Janet Browne, Paula Findlen, Peggy Aldrich Kidwell, Ann Hibner Koblitz, M. Susan Lindee, Carolyn Merchant, Margaret W. Rossiter, Londa Schiebinger, Nancy Leys Stepan, and Deborah Jean Warner.
[more]

logo for University of Chicago Press Journals
Isis, volume 112 number 1 (March 2021)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2021

logo for University of Chicago Press Journals
Isis, volume 112 number 2 (June 2021)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2021

logo for University of Chicago Press Journals
Isis, volume 112 number 3 (September 2021)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2021

front cover of Isis, volume 112 number 4 (December 2021)
Isis, volume 112 number 4 (December 2021)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2021
This is volume 112 issue 4 of Isis. Since its inception in 1912, Isis has featured scholarly articles, research notes, and commentary on the history of science, medicine, and technology and their cultural influences. Review essays and book reviews on new contributions to the discipline are also included. An official publication of the History of Science Society, Isis is the oldest English-language journal in the field.
[more]

front cover of Isis, volume 113 number 1 (March 2022)
Isis, volume 113 number 1 (March 2022)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2022
This is volume 113 issue 1 of Isis. Since its inception in 1912, Isis has featured scholarly articles, research notes, and commentary on the history of science, medicine, and technology and their cultural influences. Review essays and book reviews on new contributions to the discipline are also included. An official publication of the History of Science Society, Isis is the oldest English-language journal in the field.
[more]

front cover of Isis, volume 113 number 2 (June 2022)
Isis, volume 113 number 2 (June 2022)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2022
This is volume 113 issue 2 of Isis. Since its inception in 1912, Isis has featured scholarly articles, research notes, and commentary on the history of science, medicine, and technology and their cultural influences. Review essays and book reviews on new contributions to the discipline are also included. An official publication of the History of Science Society, Isis is the oldest English-language journal in the field.
[more]

front cover of Isis, volume 113 number 3 (September 2022)
Isis, volume 113 number 3 (September 2022)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2022
This is volume 113 issue 3 of Isis. Since its inception in 1912, Isis has featured scholarly articles, research notes, and commentary on the history of science, medicine, and technology and their cultural influences. Review essays and book reviews on new contributions to the discipline are also included. An official publication of the History of Science Society, Isis is the oldest English-language journal in the field.
[more]

front cover of Isis, volume 113 number 4 (December 2022)
Isis, volume 113 number 4 (December 2022)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2022
This is volume 113 issue 4 of Isis. Since its inception in 1912, Isis has featured scholarly articles, research notes, and commentary on the history of science, medicine, and technology and their cultural influences. Review essays and book reviews on new contributions to the discipline are also included. An official publication of the History of Science Society, Isis is the oldest English-language journal in the field.
[more]

front cover of Isis, volume 114 number 1 (March 2023)
Isis, volume 114 number 1 (March 2023)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2023
This is volume 114 issue 1 of Isis. Since its inception in 1912, Isis has featured scholarly articles, research notes, and commentary on the history of science, medicine, and technology and their cultural influences. Review essays and book reviews on new contributions to the discipline are also included. An official publication of the History of Science Society, Isis is the oldest English-language journal in the field.
[more]

front cover of Isis, volume 114 number 2 (June 2023)
Isis, volume 114 number 2 (June 2023)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2023
This is volume 114 issue 2 of Isis. Since its inception in 1912, Isis has featured scholarly articles, research notes, and commentary on the history of science, medicine, and technology and their cultural influences. Review essays and book reviews on new contributions to the discipline are also included. An official publication of the History of Science Society, Isis is the oldest English-language journal in the field.
[more]

front cover of Isis, volume 114 number 3 (September 2023)
Isis, volume 114 number 3 (September 2023)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2023
This is volume 114 issue 3 of Isis. Since its inception in 1912, Isis has featured scholarly articles, research notes, and commentary on the history of science, medicine, and technology and their cultural influences. Review essays and book reviews on new contributions to the discipline are also included. An official publication of the History of Science Society, Isis is the oldest English-language journal in the field.
[more]

front cover of Isis, volume 114 number 4 (December 2023)
Isis, volume 114 number 4 (December 2023)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2023
This is volume 114 issue 4 of Isis. Since its inception in 1912, Isis has featured scholarly articles, research notes, and commentary on the history of science, medicine, and technology and their cultural influences. Review essays and book reviews on new contributions to the discipline are also included. An official publication of the History of Science Society, Isis is the oldest English-language journal in the field.
[more]

front cover of Isis, volume 115 number 1 (March 2024)
Isis, volume 115 number 1 (March 2024)
The University of Chicago Press
University of Chicago Press Journals, 2024
This is volume 115 issue 1 of Isis. Since its inception in 1912, Isis has featured scholarly articles, research notes, and commentary on the history of science, medicine, and technology and their cultural influences. Review essays and book reviews on new contributions to the discipline are also included. An official publication of the History of Science Society, Isis is the oldest English-language journal in the field.
[more]

logo for Harvard University Press
Moralia, V
Isis and Osiris. The E at Delphi. The Oracles at Delphi No Longer Given in Verse. The Obsolescence of Oracles
Plutarch
Harvard University Press

Eclectic essays on ethics, education, and much else besides.

Plutarch (Plutarchus), ca. AD 45–120, was born at Chaeronea in Boeotia in central Greece, studied philosophy at Athens, and, after coming to Rome as a teacher in philosophy, was given consular rank by the emperor Trajan and a procuratorship in Greece by Hadrian. He was married and the father of one daughter and four sons. He appears as a man of kindly character and independent thought, studious and learned.

Plutarch wrote on many subjects. Most popular have always been the forty-six Parallel Lives, biographies planned to be ethical examples in pairs (in each pair, one Greek figure and one similar Roman), though the last four lives are single. All are invaluable sources of our knowledge of the lives and characters of Greek and Roman statesmen, soldiers and orators. Plutarch’s many other varied extant works, about sixty in number, are known as Moralia or Moral Essays. They are of high literary value, besides being of great use to people interested in philosophy, ethics, and religion.

The Loeb Classical Library edition of the Moralia is in fifteen volumes, volume XIII having two parts. Volume XVI is a comprehensive Index.

[more]

front cover of Science and the American Century
Science and the American Century
Readings from "Isis"
Edited and with an Introduction by Sally Gregory Kohlstedt and David Kaiser
University of Chicago Press, 2013
The twentieth century was one of astonishing change in science, especially as pursued in the United States. Against a backdrop of dramatic political and economic shifts brought by world wars, intermittent depressions, sporadic and occasionally massive increases in funding, and expanding private patronage, this scientific work fundamentally reshaped everyday life. Science and the American Century offers some of the most significant contributions to the study of the history of science, technology, and medicine during the twentieth century, all drawn from the pages of the journal Isis.
 
Fourteen essays from leading scholars are grouped into three sections, each presented in roughly chronological order. The first section charts several ways in which our knowledge of nature was cultivated, revealing how scientific practitioners and the public alike grappled with definitions of the “natural” as they absorbed and refracted global information. The essays in the second section investigate the changing attitudes and fortunes of scientists during and after World War II. The final section documents the intricate ways that science, as it advanced, became intertwined with social policies and the law.
 
This important and useful book provides a thoughtful and detailed overview for scholars and students of American history and the history of science, as well as for scientists and others who want to better understand modern science and science in America.
[more]

logo for University of Chicago Press
The Scientific Enterprise in America
Readings from Isis
Edited by Ronald L. Numbers and Charles E. Rosenberg
University of Chicago Press, 1996
This collection of sixteen essays on the history of science in America ranges chronologically from the early nineteenth century to the present. The essays reflect the ever-broadening scope of the discipline: from the pursuit of science in elite academic, industrial, and governmental settings to science at home and in the movies. Such timely issues as women and science, the ethics of science, and the bomb are examined.

Contributions include Sally Gregory Kohlstedt, "Parlors, Primers, and Public Schooling: Education for Science in Nineteenth-Century America;" Margaret Rossiter, "'Women's Work' in Science, 1880-1910;" Philip J. Pauly, "The Development of High School Biology: New York City, 1900-1925;" Susan E. Lederer, "Political Animals: The Shaping of Biomedical Research Literature in Twentieth-Century America;" Stanley Goldberg, "Inventing a Climate of Opinion: Vannevar Bush and the Decision to Build the Bomb;" Daniel J. Kevles, "The National Science Foundation and the Debate over Postwar Research Policy, 1942-1945: A Political Interpretation of Science: The Endless Frontier;" David A. Hollinger, "Science as a Weapon in Kulturkämpfe in the United States During and After World War II;" and others.

These essays originally were published in Isis, a publication of the History of Science Society.
[more]

logo for University of Chicago Press
The Scientific Enterprise in Antiquity and Middle Ages
Readings from Isis
Edited by Michael H. Shank
University of Chicago Press, 2001
This stimulating collection of twenty-two articles is intended not only to explore a range of scientific topics but to engage readers in historiographical debates and methodological issues that surround the study of ancient and medieval science. A convenient sampling of classic and contemporary scholarship, it will appeal to students and specialists alike.

Contributors include Francesca Rochberg, David Pingree, G. E. R. Lloyd, Heinrich von Staden, Martin Bernal, Alexander Jones, Bernard Goldstein, Alan Bowen, Owsei Temkin, David Lindberg, Steven McCluskey, Linda Voigts, Edward Grant, Bernard Goldstein, Victor Roberts, Lynn Thorndike, Helen Lemay, William Newman, A. Mark Smith, Nancy Siraisi, Michael McVaugh, and Brian P. Copenhaver.
[more]

logo for University of Chicago Press
The Scientific Enterprise in Early Modern Europe
Readings from Isis
Edited by Peter Dear
University of Chicago Press, 1997
This collection brings together thirteen articles on early modern Western science, each representing an important contribution to the ways in which the scientific revolution is regarded today.

The anthology features classic and prize-winning articles by renowned scholars, including "Totius in verba: Rhetoric and Authority in the Early Royal Society," by Peter Dear; "The Melanchthon Circle, Rheticus, and the Wittenberg Interpretation of the Copernican Theory," by Robert S. Westman; "Laboratory Design and the Aim of Science," by Owen Hannaway; "Geography as Self-Definition in Early Modern England," by Lesley B. Cormack; "What Happened to Occult Qualities in the Scientific Revolution?" by Keith Hutchison; and "Galileo, Motion, and Essences," by Margaret J. Osler.

Also, "Scientific Patronage: Galileo and the Telescope," by Richard S. Westfall; "The Telescope in the Seventeenth Century," by Albert Van Helden; "Descartes on Refraction," by Bruce S. Eastwood; "Early Seventeenth-Century Atomism," by Christoph Meinel; "Robert Boyle and Structural Chemistry in the Seventeenth Century," by Thomas S. Kuhn; "Newton's Alchemy and His Theory of Matter," by B. J. T. Dobbs; "The House of Experiment in Seventeenth-Century England," by Steven Shapin; and "Maria Winkelmann at the Berlin Academy," by Londa Scheibinger.

This carefully structured collection will help readers approach complex questions—involving argument and experiment, audience and agency, authority and institutions.
[more]

logo for Harvard University Press
The Veil of Isis
An Essay on the History of the Idea of Nature
Pierre Hadot
Harvard University Press, 2006

Nearly twenty-five hundred years ago the Greek thinker Heraclitus supposedly uttered the cryptic words "Phusis kruptesthai philei." How the aphorism, usually translated as "Nature loves to hide," has haunted Western culture ever since is the subject of this engaging study by Pierre Hadot. Taking the allegorical figure of the veiled goddess Isis as a guide, and drawing on the work of both the ancients and later thinkers such as Goethe, Rilke, Wittgenstein, and Heidegger, Hadot traces successive interpretations of Heraclitus' words. Over time, Hadot finds, "Nature loves to hide" has meant that all that lives tends to die; that Nature wraps herself in myths; and (for Heidegger) that Being unveils as it veils itself. Meanwhile the pronouncement has been used to explain everything from the opacity of the natural world to our modern angst.

From these kaleidoscopic exegeses and usages emerge two contradictory approaches to nature: the Promethean, or experimental-questing, approach, which embraces technology as a means of tearing the veil from Nature and revealing her secrets; and the Orphic, or contemplative-poetic, approach, according to which such a denuding of Nature is a grave trespass. In place of these two attitudes Hadot proposes one suggested by the Romantic vision of Rousseau, Goethe, and Schelling, who saw in the veiled Isis an allegorical expression of the sublime. "Nature is art and art is nature," Hadot writes, inviting us to embrace Isis and all she represents: art makes us intensely aware of how completely we ourselves are not merely surrounded by nature but also part of nature.

[more]


Send via email Share on Facebook Share on Twitter