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The astronomer's chair : a visual and cultural history / Omar W. Nasim.

LIBRA QB85.8 .N37 2021
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Format:
Book
Author/Creator:
Nasim, Omar W., 1976- author.
Contributor:
Edward Potts Cheyney Memorial Fund.
Language:
English
Subjects (All):
Astronomy--Equipment and supplies--History.
Astronomy.
Chairs--History.
Chairs.
Chair design--History.
Chair design.
Astronomy--Equipment and supplies.
History.
Genre:
History.
Physical Description:
xiii, 295 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 24 cm
Place of Publication:
Cambridge, Massachusetts : The MIT Press, [2021]
Summary:
"A historical and cultural study of astronomers' chairs, their design and function, and their connection to 19th-century concepts of race, class, gender, and power"-- Provided by publisher.
Contents:
Machine generated contents note: 1. Introduction: The Astronomer's Chair and Its Fields
An Old Motif
Chairs in Perspective
Image and Object
Representational Fields
At Home, Abroad, and Within
Contrasting Fields
At the Observatory
Summary of Chapters
2. Home, Hierarchy, History
Differentiated Home
Interior Navigation
Enlightened Postures
Visible Character
Middle-Class Comfort
Civilizing Comfort
Ordered History
Manufactured Orient
3. Mechanical Comforts
Manufactured Mechanics
Patents and Innovation
Professionalized Chairs
"Invalid" Chairs
Wheelchairs to Observing Chairs
Bourgeois Observatories
Chairs, Bodies, Telescopes
The "Comfortable Telescope"
Standing or Sitting
4. Cross Legged Astronomy
Observing the Foreign
Napoleon's Arab Astronomer
"National Postures"
Fate and Free Will
Undifferentiated Labor
Fixed Emasculation
Space, Time, Motion
Postures of Knowledge
Chaired Native, Cross-Legged Self
A Science in History
A Cross-Legged Astronomer
5. Restless Energies
Manly Science
Racialized Energy
Colonizing Flows
"No Sleepy Matter"
Idleness and Fatigue
Work and Waste
Hygiene of an Observing Chair
Visual Economies
Ocularcentric Comforts
Armchair Science
Return of the Ordinary Chair
Conclusion
Coda: Freud's "Analytic Divan"
Freud's Couch and the Astronomer
Freud's Telescope
Deep Time Inside.
Notes:
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Local Notes:
Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Edward Potts Cheyney Memorial Fund.
ISBN:
9780262045537
0262045532
OCLC:
1201695428
Publisher Number:
99988509201

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