John Tresch

John Tresch (US) is Associate Professor of the History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania. Trained in anthropology and philosophy, Treschs’ work explores the diversity of the sciences, especially their interactions with other cultural formations. He focuses on connections between cosmology, experience, social order, and ritual; changing methods, instruments and disciplinary arrangements in the sciences, arts, and media; and shifting definitions of the rational and real. Tresch wrote The Romantic Machine, which was awarded the Pfizer Award for Outstanding Book by the History of Science Society in 2013. Currently, Tresch is involved in a project about American author Edgar Allen Poe, with an interest in analysing Poe’s scientific and technical obsessions.

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Session 4: How the Night Changed

Friday 27 February

10:30 - 12:30

Paradiso, Main Hall

The night was once pitch dark. Nocturnal human activity was determined by darkness. The real darkness of the night informed our cultural conception of night and darkness. But the night changed during the nineteenth century