John Tresch, Ph.D., Assistant Professor
History and Sociology of Science
University of Pennsylvania
326 Logan Hall
249 S. 36th St.
Philadelphia, PA 19104
E-mail
2001 Ph.D., Cambridge University, History and Philosophy of Science
1996-2000 Ecole Normale Supérieure (élève de l'ENS, Concours B'/L 1996)
1997 D.E.A. de Sciences Sociales, ENS/ EHESS
1996 M.Phil, Cambridge University, HPS
1995 B.A., University of Chicago, Anthropology
John Tresch came to Penn in 2006, following post-doctoral fellowships at Columbia, Northwestern, and the University of Chicago. His research focuses on the cultural history of science and technology in Europe (especially France) and the USA from 1750 to the present.
Teaching Fields: History of science, history of technology
Research Interests: History of science and technology (Europe/ US, 18th century to present); anthropology of science; science and literature; science and religion; media studies; history of the human sciences (anthropology, sociology, psychology).
Manuscript in Progress:
The Romantic Machine: Science and Utopian Technology in France from 1820 to 1851
Other Research Projects:
• The American Experiments of Edgar Allan Poe
• Ethnographic Study of the Neuroscience of Meditation (Mind and Life)
• Technology, Psychophysics and Anthropology from Kant to Boas
Publications
Under review. “The Eclectic Automaton.”
Forthcoming. “Even the Tools Will Be Free: Humboldt’s Romantic Technologies.” In David Aubin, Charlotte Bigg, and Otto Sibum eds., The Heavens on Earth: Nineteenth Century Observatory Sciences. Duke University Press. Download pdf.
Forthcoming. “Absolute Ampère.” In Formen des Experiments. Henning Schmidgen and Julia Kursell, eds.
2007. “The Daguerreotype’s First Frame: François Arago’s Moral Economy of Instruments.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Science. 38 (2), pp. 445-476.
2007. “Technological World-Pictures: Cosmic Things, Cosmograms.” Focus Section on “Thick Things.” Isis, 98: 84-99.
2007. “Estrangement of Vision: Edgar Allan Poe’s Optics”. In Fiorenti, Erna., ed. Observing Nature- Representing Experience, The Osmotic Dynamics of Romanticism, 1800-1850. Berlin: Reimer Verlag. 2005.
2005. “Cosmogram.” Interview with Jean-Christophe Royoux, in Cosmogram. Melik Ohanian and Jean-Christophe Royoux, eds.Lukas and Sternberg. New York. pp. 67-76.
2005. “Mapping the Roads to Current Science.” Review of Making Modern Science by Peter Bowler and Iwan Rhys Morus. Science, October, 2005, 2167-8.
2005. “¡Viva la República Cósmica!, or The Children of Humboldt and Coca-Cola.” In Peter Weibel and Bruno Latour, eds, Making Things Public: Atmospheres of Democracy. Cambridge, MA/ Karlsruhe; MIT/ ZKM. pp.352-356.
2004. “In a Solitary Place: Raymond Roussel’s Brain and the French Cult of Unreason.” Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, special issue on “The Brain in the Vat”, ed. Catherina Gere, 35 (2), June 2004, pp.307-332.
2004. “La science mise à nu (par ses ethnographes, même).” Essay review of recent anthropology of science. Critique: Revue internationale des publications françaises et étrangères, special issue: “Frontières de l’Anthropologie?”. Jan-Feb, 680-681, pp. 52-65. Download file (English version).
2003. “The Uses of a Mistranslated Manifesto: Baudelaire’s ‘Genèse d’un Poème.’” Esprit Créateur, issue on “Intermédialités”, ed. Jean-Christophe Valtat. 43 (2), pp. 23-35.
2002. “Did Francis Bacon Eat Pork? A Note on the Tabernacle in New Atlantis.”, in Iconoclash: Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Art and Religion, eds. Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel. Cambridge: MIT Press, pp. 231-233.
2001. “Extra! Extra! Poe Invents Science Fiction!” in The Cambridge Companion to Poe, ed. Kevin J. Hayes. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 113-132.
2001. “On Going Native: Thomas Kuhn and Anthropological Method." Philosophy of the Social Sciences. 31(3), pp. 302-322. Download pdf.
2000. “Cybernetics and the Mind of God.” N01SE exhibit catalog, eds. Adam Lowe and Simon Schaffer. Whipple Museum, Cambridge; Wellcome Institute, London.
1999. Entries: “Rutherford,” “Von Laue,” “Yukawa,” “Sommerfeld,” “Schrödinger.” With Simon Werrett. Dictionnaire d'histoire et philosophie des sciences, ed. Dominique Lecourt. Presses Universitaires de France, Paris.
1998. “Heredity is an Open System: Gregory Bateson as Descendant and Ancestor.” Anthropology Today, 14 (6), pp. 3-6. Download pdf.
1997. “The Potent Magic of Verisimilitude: Edgar Allan Poe within the Mechanical Age.” British Journal for the History of Science, 30, pp. 275-290. Download pdf.
