Maria Mitchell's Literary, Political, and Scientific Spheres

FAIN: FB-52448-06

Renée Bergland
Simmons College (Boston, MA 02115-5820)

In part, this is a project of historical recovery. It puts the astronomer Maria Mitchell back into the conversations about science and sex that revolved around her during her lifetime (1818-1889). It is also a study of the sexing of science during the latter part of the nineteenth century. The study traces changes in attitudes toward science and gender that separated the sciences and the humanities into "two cultures" and linked science to masculinity.

Associated Products

Urania’s Inversion: Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, and the Strange History of Women Scientists in Nineteenth-Century America, (Article)
Title: Urania’s Inversion: Emily Dickinson, Herman Melville, and the Strange History of Women Scientists in Nineteenth-Century America,
Author: Renee Bergland
Abstract: The essay examines Emily Dickinson's poem on Caroline Herschel and Herman Melville's poem on Maria Mitchell. It argues that in the mid nineteenth century, women astronomers became symbols of transgender identity.
Year: 2008
Primary URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/588428
Primary URL Description: JSTOR Link
Access Model: JSTOR
Format: Journal
Periodical Title: Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society
Publisher: (University of Chicago) Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 34:1 (Autumn 2008) 75-100.

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