Living Forms: Faust and Geometry in 20th Century Anglophone Morphology and Plant Sciences
** watch future Linda Hall Library lectures live at new.livestream.com/lindahall ** September 8, 2015, in the Linda Hall Library Auditorium About the lecture: Evolution and genetics came to dominate 20th century biology. Yet morphology, which had been more prominent during the 19th century, continued to intrigue and inform biologists, particularly plant scientists. The latter often pointed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), the German poet, novelist, and naturalist who also authored Faust, as the creator of plant morphology. Morphology played various roles in 20th century Anglophone science. Through it’s mathematical forms forwarded by individuals such as the Scottish naturalist and classicist D’Arcy Thompson (1860-1948) and the English mathematician Alan Turing (1912-1954), it became a way to bring biology firmly into the realm of the sciences. In more idealistic forms, coming from individuals like the English botanist and historian Agnes Arber (1879-1960) and the English biologist Rupert Sheldrake (b. 1942), it served as a way to overcome modern science’s Faustian bargain and connect science to art, spirituality, and environmentalism. In many cases, these divergent roles given to morphology were not seen as mutually exclusive. The speaker: Andy Hahn is a Ph.D. candidate in the History of Science program at Oregon State University and a Research Fellow at the Linda Hall Library. While an undergraduate student at the University of Illinois-Champaign (B.A. in philosophy and minor in mathematics), he became interested in Goethe’s morphology and the use of the imagination as a tool to understand the natural world. To study Goethe’s work in closer detail, he completed a M.A. in Interdisciplinary Studies at Oregon State. His thesis looked at Goethe’s use of the imagination in The Metamorphosis of Plants while placing it in three distinct contexts: its own historical context, its potential contributions to current theories of natural aesthetics, and its application in a contemporary institution that interacts with adult learners and is engaged in the debate over the use of genetically modified organisms in agriculture. As a doctoral student OSU, he continues to look at Goethe’s morphology, turning to how it has been received, interpreted, and put to use since Goethe’s original formulation. Video produced by The VideoWorks of Roeland Park, Kansas.
