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The Astronomer's Chair: A Visual and Cultural History
The astronomer’s observing chair as both image and object, and the story it tells about a particular kind of science and a particular view of history.
The astronomer’s chair is a leitmotif in the history of astronomy, appearing in hundreds of drawings, prints, and photographs from a variety of sources. Nineteenth-century stargazers in particular seemed eager to display their observing chairs—task-specific, often mechanically adjustable observatory furniture designed for use in conjunction with telescopes. But what message did they mean to send with these images? In The Astronomer’s Chair , Omar W. Nasim considers these specialized chairs as both image and object, offering an original framework for linking visual and material cultures. Observing chairs, Nasim ingeniously argues, showcased and embodied forms of scientific labor, personae, and bodily practice that appealed to bourgeois sensibilities.
Viewing image and object as connected parts of moral, epistemic, and visual economies of empire, Nasim shows that nineteenth-century science was represented in terms of comfort and energy, and that “manly” postures of Western astronomers at work in specialized chairs were contrasted pointedly with images of “effete” and cross-legged “Oriental” astronomers. Extending his historical analysis into the twentieth century, Nasim reexamines what he argues to be a famous descendant of the astronomer’s Freud’s psychoanalytic couch, which directed observations not outward toward the stars but inward toward the stratified universe of the psyche. But whether in conjunction with the mind or the heavens, the observing chair was a point of entry designed for specialists that also portrayed widely held assumptions about who merited epistemic access to these realms in the first place.
With more than 100 illustrations, many in color; flexibound.
The astronomer’s chair is a leitmotif in the history of astronomy, appearing in hundreds of drawings, prints, and photographs from a variety of sources. Nineteenth-century stargazers in particular seemed eager to display their observing chairs—task-specific, often mechanically adjustable observatory furniture designed for use in conjunction with telescopes. But what message did they mean to send with these images? In The Astronomer’s Chair , Omar W. Nasim considers these specialized chairs as both image and object, offering an original framework for linking visual and material cultures. Observing chairs, Nasim ingeniously argues, showcased and embodied forms of scientific labor, personae, and bodily practice that appealed to bourgeois sensibilities.
Viewing image and object as connected parts of moral, epistemic, and visual economies of empire, Nasim shows that nineteenth-century science was represented in terms of comfort and energy, and that “manly” postures of Western astronomers at work in specialized chairs were contrasted pointedly with images of “effete” and cross-legged “Oriental” astronomers. Extending his historical analysis into the twentieth century, Nasim reexamines what he argues to be a famous descendant of the astronomer’s Freud’s psychoanalytic couch, which directed observations not outward toward the stars but inward toward the stratified universe of the psyche. But whether in conjunction with the mind or the heavens, the observing chair was a point of entry designed for specialists that also portrayed widely held assumptions about who merited epistemic access to these realms in the first place.
With more than 100 illustrations, many in color; flexibound.
- GenresHistory Of Science
312 pages, Paperback
Published September 21, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
March 19, 2023
Perhaps a strange thing for a historian of science to focus on, but Nasim pulls it off. It’s more of a cultural history than a history of science, but even saying that doesn’t do justice to the variety of themes he manages to weave together in this book: from histories of gender to design, from (de)colonialism to instrument-making, from polite culture to epistemologies of vision. It takes a lot of confidence to blend these together well, which Nasim does. The source base is very broad, and yet he still makes it read quite coherently. The main objective of the book, Nasim explains, is to decolonise the image and object of the astronomer’s chair, to “exorcise (i.e., decolonize) the multiple specters of the Other” in it [261]. This partly explains his predominant focus on Western Europe throughout the book, which is also Nasim’s area of expertise, but the best chapter in my opinion is the one on chairs and sitting habits in the Middle East, and how westerners came into contact with them. The “image and object” aspect of his book is also interesting, as he treats the chair as both a physical thing and a symbol or icon; connecting the material and immaterial worlds, the chair becomes in John Tresch’s terms a “materialised cosmology”. Rather than being a “necessary” work of scholarship on a critical cog in the wheel that is the history of science, I suspect readers might find this book more helpful as an example of blending various historical sub-disciplines (putting seemingly disparate fields in conversation with one another).
September 26, 2024
Perhaps the oddest non fiction I have encountered. I am not sure if this is a history book, a book to be displayed for others, or an attempt by the author to correlate furniture styles to socio-economic standards. I found this on the "interesting reads" table at the MIT bookstore, and well the pictures seduced me.
I did not read every word. Indeed the second chapter on the history of chairs was just a bit too much for my taste. The most interesting facet was a piece on an observatory on East Ave in Rochester NY. It was a grand stone structure that fits in with the architecture in that area. It was demolished in the early 1920s, but the owner (a snake oil salesman) wrote a book on the discoveries made in the building. Long out of print but has be resurrected and I look forward to perusing. The owner moved to California to avoid the light pollution creeping in on Rochester at the time. Odd, as Rochester home of the now gone Kodak company has the grayest skies I have ever observed. Perhaps clouds not light motivated the move.
The pictures and drawings were the best part of this well researched book. The attempt to describe furniture as representing the culture was just not that compelling. I grew up in a home with old and very breakable furniture. Is that a microscope into the soul of the owners and the time?
I did not read every word. Indeed the second chapter on the history of chairs was just a bit too much for my taste. The most interesting facet was a piece on an observatory on East Ave in Rochester NY. It was a grand stone structure that fits in with the architecture in that area. It was demolished in the early 1920s, but the owner (a snake oil salesman) wrote a book on the discoveries made in the building. Long out of print but has be resurrected and I look forward to perusing. The owner moved to California to avoid the light pollution creeping in on Rochester at the time. Odd, as Rochester home of the now gone Kodak company has the grayest skies I have ever observed. Perhaps clouds not light motivated the move.
The pictures and drawings were the best part of this well researched book. The attempt to describe furniture as representing the culture was just not that compelling. I grew up in a home with old and very breakable furniture. Is that a microscope into the soul of the owners and the time?
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews