Simon Werrett's guest appearances

Simon Werrett

The Week in Art

That Shakespeare Life

We Are STS

Edmund de Waal

David Smith

Helen Cammock

William Blake

Richard Lin

David Hockney

Michael Rakowitz

Gordon Parks

Grayson Perry

Bruce Nauman

Antony Gormley

George Michael

Jeremy Deller

David Chipperfield

Cornelia Parker

OwlTail

The technology of explosions to celebrate or mark an occasion of jubilation that we know today as fireworks was a new thing for Shakespeare’s lifetime. Shakespeare mentions the word “firework” only twice in his works, once in relation to a fight in Henry VIII and another time in relation to a show or pageant in Love’s Labour’s Lost. Our guest this week, Simon Werrett is the author of a book on the history and science behind fireworks and he joins us today to share exactly how they worked for Shakepeare’s lifetime, which celebrations were held using fireworks, and what the people of 16th century England thought about this wild and exotic light display.  Get bonus episodes on Patreon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The technology of explosions to celebrate or mark an occasion of jubilation that we know today as fireworks was a new thing for Shakespeare’s lifetime. Shakespeare mentions the word “firework” only twice in his works, once in relation to a fight in Henry VIII and another time in relation to a show or pageant in Love’s Labour’s Lost. Our guest this week, Simon Werrett is the author of a book on the history and science behind fireworks and he joins us today to share exactly how they worked for Shakepeare’s lifetime, which celebrations were held using fireworks, and what the people of 16th century England thought about this wild and exotic light display.  <a href="https://open.acast.com/public/patreon/fanSubscribe/980723" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">Get bonus episodes on Patreon</a> Hosted on Acast. See <a href="https://acast.com/privacy" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.

Fireworks with Simon Werrett

Professor Simon Werrett (UCL Professor of History and Philosophy of Science) talks about his award-winning book, THRIFTY SCIENCE. In Britain of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the practices of reuse, re-purpose, and recycle were core to the work of what became science. More important, if you follow the trails left by these activities, you’ll find ideas that reorganise how we should think about the way science was done, where it was done, and who did the work. Professor Werrett also resurrects the old word “oeconomy,” putting it to work to help us understand why reuse was understood to be virtuous. And he explains how industrialisation in the nineteenth century substituted ideas related to consumption and specialisation. In this interview, Professor Werrett discusses the main ideas of his book, plus how he hopes to extend his analysis to histories of thrifty science in Russia and elsewhere. He also talks about other projects he has underway and some of the joys that come from a focus on material culture in the history of science and technology. In our age of recycling, is thrifty science making a comeback? Professor Werrett argues it never went away. It simply is something we tend to let drift out of focus. Simon’s book: Simon Werrett. 2019. Making the Most of Materials in the History of Experiment (University of Chicago Press), ISBN 978-0-226-61025-2. It was awarded the 2020 Paul Bunge Prize from the German Chemical Society and the German Society for Physical Chemistry. Simon talks about some of the main ideas from his book in a series of short films produced by STS:  https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqDGBZHFcMlnaTbR1vS266tWaCnnCaCjK The project described by Simon at The Institute of Making was the 2014 “Emotions, Transformations, and Restorations”: https://emotionstransformationsrestorations.wordpress.com   Featuring Interviewee: Professor Simon Werrett, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science  Interviewer: Professor Joe Cain, Professor in History and Philosophy of Biology    Music credits “Rollin At 5,” by Kevin MacLeod Link: https://filmmusic.io/song/5000-rollin-at-5 License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/   Production information Editing and post-production by Professor Joe Cain.   Podcast information “WeAreSTS” is a production of the Department of Science and Technology Studies (STS) at University College London (UCL). To find out more, and to leave feedback about the show, visit us online: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/podcast STS Students and staff also can find on the website information about how to get involved with our programme. “WeAreSTS” producer is Professor Joe Cain. Twitter: @stsucl #WeAreSTS

Professor Simon Werrett (UCL Professor of History and Philosophy of Science) talks about his award-winning book, THRIFTY SCIENCE. In Britain of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the practices of reuse, re-purpose, and recycle were core to the work of what became science. More important, if you follow the trails left by these activities, you’ll find ideas that reorganise how we should think about the way science was done, where it was done, and who did the work. Professor Werrett also resurrects the old word “oeconomy,” putting it to work to help us understand why reuse was understood to be virtuous. And he explains how industrialisation in the nineteenth century substituted ideas related to consumption and specialisation. In this interview, Professor Werrett discusses the main ideas of his book, plus how he hopes to extend his analysis to histories of thrifty science in Russia and elsewhere. He also talks about other projects he has underway and some of the joys that come from a focus on material culture in the history of science and technology. In our age of recycling, is thrifty science making a comeback? Professor Werrett argues it never went away. It simply is something we tend to let drift out of focus. Simon’s book: Simon Werrett. 2019. Making the Most of Materials in the History of Experiment (University of Chicago Press), ISBN 978-0-226-61025-2. It was awarded the 2020 Paul Bunge Prize from the German Chemical Society and the German Society for Physical Chemistry. Simon talks about some of the main ideas from his book in a series of short films produced by STS: <a href="https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqDGBZHFcMlnaTbR1vS266tWaCnnCaCjK" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLqDGBZHFcMlnaTbR1vS266tWaCnnCaCjK</a> The project described by Simon at The Institute of Making was the 2014 “Emotions, Transformations, and Restorations”: <a href="https://emotionstransformationsrestorations.wordpress.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://emotionstransformationsrestorations.wordpress.com</a> Featuring Interviewee: Professor Simon Werrett, Professor of History and Philosophy of Science Interviewer: Professor Joe Cain, Professor in History and Philosophy of Biology Music credits “Rollin At 5,” by Kevin MacLeod Link: <a href="https://filmmusic.io/song/5000-rollin-at-5" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://filmmusic.io/song/5000-rollin-at-5</a> License: <a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/</a> Production information Editing and post-production by Professor Joe Cain. Podcast information “WeAreSTS” is a production of the Department of Science and Technology Studies (STS) at University College London (UCL). To find out more, and to leave feedback about the show, visit us online: <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.ucl.ac.uk/sts/podcast</a> STS Students and staff also can find on the website information about how to get involved with our programme. “WeAreSTS” producer is Professor Joe Cain. Twitter: @stsucl #WeAreSTS

#7 Why Has Recycling Always Been Key to Research? Professor Simon Werrett Talks Thrifty Science | WeAreSTS

To mark Bonfire Night in the UK, this bonus episode of The Art Newspaper takes a look at the history of pyrotechnics in art and wider visual culture. We talk to Simon Werrett, the author of the book Fireworks: Pyrotechnic Arts and Sciences in European History, and he talks about the variety of uses of fireworks over the centuries and the differing ways that artists have depicted them. You can see some of the art discussed in the podcast by visiting theartnewspaper.com/podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To mark Bonfire Night in the UK, this bonus episode of The Art Newspaper takes a look at the history of pyrotechnics in art and wider visual culture. We talk to Simon Werrett, the author of the book Fireworks: Pyrotechnic Arts and Sciences in European History, and he talks about the variety of uses of fireworks over the centuries and the differing ways that artists have depicted them. You can see some of the art discussed in the podcast by visiting <a href="http://theartnewspaper.com/podcast" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">theartnewspaper.com/podcast</a>. Hosted on Acast. See <a href="https://acast.com/privacy" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.

Fireworks! Picturing pyrotechnics with professor Simon Werrett