The Astronomer's Chair

“An excellent example of the kinds of insights that can result from an interdisciplinary cultural history and illustrates how looking at mundane objects can reveal illuminating entanglements between science and society more broadly.”
—H-Net Humanities

“The Astronomer’s Chair is an inspiring study, and, indeed, a cultural history, which directs attention to the dense net of far-reaching interdependences and relations that surrounds even the most mundane objects of science.”
—Journal for the History of Astronomy

“Written with passion and curiosity… Starting from the analysis of an ordinary object, it well describes how much scientists are influenced by their social and cultural context.”
—Isis

“In addition to the beautiful illustrations and rich examples, what captivates is the elegance with which Nasim narrates a cultural history of an object that seems simple at first glance.”
—The British Journal for the History of Science

“[The Astronomer’s Chair] encourages us all to consider new technologies and material objects as visual apparatus.”
—Visual Studies

“Brilliantly unpacks multiple layers of cultural, symbolic, and epistemic meanings of a seemingly trivial and ancillary piece of scientific apparatus. By doing so, it provides an inspiring and thought-provoking read to all those engaged with the visual and material culture of science and willing to approach it from innovative angles.”
—Nuncius

Omar W. Nasim is Professor for the History of Science at the Institute of Philosophy at the University of Regensburg, Germany. He is the author of Observing by Hand- Sketching the Nebulae in the Nineteenth Century, winner of the History of Science Society’s Pfizer Award for 2016.

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