Over the past decades scholars have traced the intersections between science and spiritualism during the second half of the nineteenth century in a variety of locales around the world. This essay examines such intersections in one setting that has largely eluded their attention, Imperial Russia. It investigates the pivotal role played by Alexander N. Aksakov (1832-1903) in developing a...
This study focuses on the notions of 'ruins', 'savage knowledge', and 'American race' in the works of the German naturalist Carl Friedrich Philipp von Martius (1794-1868). A somewhat neglected figure in the history of anthropology and of natural history, Martius was regarded by scholars from Europe and the Americas as a leading figure in botany and ethnology in the nineteenth century. In this...
In 1758 in London, Swedish natural philosopher and mystic theologian Emanuel Swedenborg published De Telluribus in Mundo nostro Solari (Earths in our solar system), a treatise on the plurality of worlds and life on other planets. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, these topics formed a heterogenous literary genre which encompassed theology, astronomy, philosophy and satire. In De...