Genealogy of popular science: from ancient Ecphrasis to virtual reality

Cover -- Contents -- List of Figures -- Preface -- Introductory Articles -- The Origins of Popular Science as a Rhetorical and Protreptical Practice -- From Rational Recreation to Fun with Science. Continuities in the History of Science Popularization since the Enlightenment -- On the Trail ofPopular Science in Antiquity -- Mythology and Rhetoric Exercises at the Greek School -- The Panathenaic Prize-Amphorae as Communication Media -- Popular Knowledge and its Rhetorical Use in Aristotle -- Ékphrasis as a Device for Knowledge Dissemination in Euripides -- Argument Schemes Related to Popular Science in the Second Sophistic -- Knowledge about the Sea and its Creatures in the Roman Empire -- The Celestial Axis in Manilius' Astronomica: Making the Invisible Visible -- Between Pre-Modernity and the Age of Enlightenment -- Popular Mechanics: Hero of Alexandria from Antiquity to the Renaissance -- Knowledge Order and Knowledge Popularization in Pre-ModernEncyclopaedism -- Was Cometen eygentlich seyen. Ways of Imparting Knowledge about the Nature of Comets in Early Modern Ephemeral Literature -- More Publicity through Very Short Books. Epitomes in Late Antiquity and the Renaissance -- Pictorial Science and Enlightenment Art: Joseph Wright, William Pether, and the Cognitive Effect of Grayscales -- Modern Times: Arts and Sciences and Media -- Popularity Despite Anti-Popularization Thinking of Optical Drawing Devices in the Early 19th Century -- Wilhelm Lübke. Art History for Feuilletons -- Popular Aesthetics of the 19th Century. Ornamental Prints and Pattern Sheets as Actors for Popularization During the 1870s -- Wassily Kandinsky's Conception of a Vibration of the Soul: Art Theory at the Crossroads of Esoteric Literature, Popular Science, and Aesthetics -- Visual Nature Metaphors of Cybernetics in Popular Science and the Arts.

Despite the efforts of modern scholars to explain the origins of science communication as a social, rhetorical, and aesthetic phenomenon, most researchers approach the popularization of science from the perspective of present issues, thus ignoring its historical roots in classical culture along with its continuities, disruptions, and transformations. This volume fills this research gap with a genealogically reflected introduction into the popularization of science as a recurrent cultural technique. The category »popular science« is elucidated in interdisciplinary and diachronic dialogue, discussing case studies from all historical periods. Classicists, archaeologists, medievalists, art historians, sociologists, and historians of science provide the first diachronic and multi-layered approach to the rhetoric techniques, aesthetics, and societal conditions that have shaped the dissemination and reception of scientific knowledge.