Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical

The Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical (SciPer) project ran from 1999 to 2007 and was jointly organized by the Centre for Nineteenth-Century Studies in the Department of English Literature at the University of Sheffield and the Division of History and Philosophy of Science in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Leeds. It was run under the aegis of the Humanties Research Institute of the University of Sheffield, and was funded by the AHRC, the Leverhulme Trust, and the MHRA.

The aim of the project was to identify and analyse the representation of science, technology and medicine, as well as the inter-penetration of science and literature, in the general periodical press in Britain between 1800 and 1900. Employing a highly interdisciplinary approach, it addressed not only the reception of scientific ideas in the general press, but also examined the creation of non-specialist forms of scientific discourse within a periodical format, and the ways in which they interact with the miscellany of other kinds of articles found in nineteenth-century periodicals.

The project published the third and final release of Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical: An Electronic Index on 18 December 2007. This annotated electronic index of the scientific content of sixteen general periodicals contains entries for over 14,000 articles and references to more than 6000 individuals and 2500 publications. It is freely available via the Humanities Research Institute Online Press, HRI Online. The index website gives full details of the project's aims and activities.

In addition, the project published three books. The first was a volume of interpretative essays on the representation of the various sciences within the periodical literature of the period, written by the project staff. Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical: Reading the Magazine of Nature was published by Cambridge University Press in September 2004. In addition, the two conferences held by the project in Leeds (2000) and M.I.T. (2001) resulted in two further volumes of essays: Culture and Science in the Nineteenth-Century Media (Aldershot: Ashgate Publishing, 2004) and Science Serialized: Representations of the Sciences in Nineteenth-Century Periodicals (Cambridge, MA: M.I.T. Press, 2004).

Members of project staff compiled a set of Research Resources for Nineteenth-Century Studies which continue to be updated as often as possible and are useful for students and scholars alike.

Page created by J. R. Topham (j.r.topham[at-symbol]leeds.ac.uk)