William R. Newman

William R. Newman (born March 13, 1955) is Distinguished Professor and Ruth N. Halls Professor in the Department of History and Philosophy of Science at Indiana University. Most of Newman’s work in the History of Science has been devoted to alchemy and "chymistry," the art-nature debate, and matter theories,[2] particularly atomism. Newman is also General Editor of the Chymistry of Isaac Newton, an online resource combining born-digital editions of Newton’s alchemical writings with multimedia replications of Newton’s alchemical experiments.[3][4] In addition, he was Director of the Catapult Center for Digital Humanities and Computational Analysis of Texts at Indiana University.[5] Newman is on the editorial boards of Archimedes, Early Science and Medicine, and HOPOS.

William R. Newman
William R. Newman, 2006
Born(1955-03-13)March 13, 1955
NationalityUnited States
AwardsHIST Award, ACS. 2013[1]
Academic background
Alma materUniversity of North Carolina at Greensboro, Harvard University
Academic work
DisciplineHistorian of Science, Historian of Chemistry
InstitutionsIndiana University

Educational background

Newman received his B.A. in the History of Science and Proto-Science from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (1978),[6] where he studied under the poet and literary critic Elizabeth Sewell,[7] the chemist Otto Theodor Benfey (at Guilford College)[8]:82 and the Germanist Harold Jantz (at Duke University). In 1986, Newman received a Ph.D. from Harvard University, where his advisor was John E. Murdoch, who was the historian of medieval science. At the same time, Newman worked with Robert Halleux, a historian of science at the Université de Liège.[9]

Professional background

Upon receiving his doctorate, Newman taught for three years at Stonehill College, and then moved to Harvard University as Head Tutor in the History and Science Program. In 1996, he moved to Indiana University, where he has served both as faculty member and department chair.[10]

The history of medieval alchemy formed the central focus of Newman's early work, which included several studies of Roger Bacon and culminated in an edition, translation, and study of the Latin alchemist who wrote under the assumed name of "Geber" (a transliteration of "Jābir", from "Jābir ibn Hayyān"), probably Paul of Taranto.[11]

In 1994, Newman published Gehennical Fire, an intellectual biography of George Starkey (otherwise known as Eirenaeus Philalethes), a native of Bermuda who received his A.B. from Harvard College in 1646 and went on to become Robert Boyle's first serious tutor in chemistry and probably the favorite alchemical writer of Isaac Newton.[12]

In 2002 and 2004, Newman and Lawrence M. Principe expanded the study of Starkey’s relationship to Boyle with Alchemy Tried in the Fire and also published the Alchemical Laboratory Notebooks of Starkey. Following the lead set out in Newman's Gehennical Fire, the two authors argued that such terms as "early chemistry" and "alchemy" did scant justice to the expansive field in which figures like Starkey operated, so they advocated for a return to the archaic term "chymistry" in two seminal articles: this use of “chymistry” is now widely recognized, and has been acknowledged by the Oxford English Dictionary (see the OED entry for “Chemistry”).[13]

In 2004, Newman published Promethean Ambitions, a work that explores alchemy’s important role as a focus for the widespread debate about the powers of art and nature in Western culture. His Atoms and Alchemy, which argues that medieval and early modern alchemy were fundamental sources for the mechanical philosophy of the 17th century, as well as for the approach to matter theory that Newman dubs "chymical atomism," appeared in 2006.[14] Newman is General Editor of the Chymistry of Isaac Newton project, which is editing Newton's alchemical writings and providing additional multimedia aids for deciphering them.[4]

Honors

Published works
  • Evidence and Interpretation: Studies on Early Science and Medicine in Honor of John E. Murdoch (volume of articles edited by Newman and Edith Dudley Sylla) (Leiden: Brill, 2009). ISBN 978-9004178786
  • The Artificial and The Natural: An Evolving Polarity (volume of articles co-edited with Bernadette Bensaude-Vincent) (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2007). ISBN 0-262-02620-1
  • Atoms and Alchemy: Chymistry and the Experimental Origins of the Scientific Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006). ISBN 978-0226576961
  • George Starkey: Alchemical Laboratory Notebooks and Correspondence (with Lawrence M. Principe) (Chicago: University of Chicago Press 2004). ISBN 0226577015
  • Promethean Ambitions: Alchemy and the Quest to Perfect Nature (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). ISBN 978-0226577128
  • Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry (with Lawrence M. Principe), (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002). ISBN 978-0226577111
  • Secrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe (volume of articles co-edited with Anthony Grafton), (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001). ISBN 0-262-14075-6
  • Late Medieval and Early Modern Corpuscular Matter Theories (volume of articles co-edited with Christoph Lüthy and John E. Murdoch) (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 2001). ISBN 978-9004115163
  • Gehennical Fire: The Lives of George Starkey, An American Alchemist in the Scientific Revolution (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003; first edition, Cambridge, MA. Harvard University Press, 1994). ISBN 978-0226577142
  • The Summa Perfectionis of Pseudo-Geber: A Critical Edition, Translation and Study, (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991). ISBN 978-9004094642
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gollark: I got it some years back when it was extremely cheap.
gollark: Idea: Esolangs Civilization V tournament?
gollark: I like how you're helping to create the instruments of your own demise.
gollark: ```>>> nltk.pos_tag(nltk.word_tokenize("LyricLy is widely considered bad"))[('LyricLy', 'NNP'), ('is', 'VBZ'), ('widely', 'RB'), ('considered', 'VBN'), ('bad', 'JJ')]```I actually have no idea what the tags mean.

References
  1. "IU Bloomington faculty member recognized for outstanding scholarship in history of chemistry". IUB.edu. 2013-02-26.
  2. Bowden, Mary Ellen (2007). "A Revolution in the Scientific Revolution". Chemical Heritage Magazine. 25 (4). Retrieved 3 November 2015.
  3. "Current Project Team Members". The Chymistry of Isaac Newton Project. Retrieved 20 November 2016.
  4. Newman, William R. (ed.). "The Chymistry of Isaac Newton". Indiana University. Retrieved 3 November 2015.
  5. "The Catapult Center for Digital Humanities and Computational Analysis". Indiana University. Retrieved 3 November 2015.
  6. "William R. Newman: IU News Room: Indiana University". Newsinfo.iu.edu. 2009-03-20. Retrieved 2012-05-31.
  7. "William R. Newman (1955-)" (PDF). University of Illinois. Retrieved 4 May 2016.
  8. Bohning, James J. (5 June 1991). O. Theodor Benfey, Transcript of an Interview Conducted by James J. Bohning at the Chemical Heritage Foundation on 24 May 1991 and 5 June 1991 (PDF). Philadelphia, PA: Chemical Heritage Foundation.
  9. William R. Newman, Atoms and Alchemy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006), p. ix.
  10. "William Newman website". Mypage.iu.edu. Retrieved 2012-05-31.
  11. William R. Newman, "New Light on the Identity of Geber," Sudhoffs Archiv für die Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften, 69(1985), pp. 76-90. See also Newman, "The Genesis of the Summa perfectionis," Les archives internationales d'histoire des sciences, 35(1985), pp. 240-302.
  12. William R. Newman, Gehennical Fire (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003), pp. 14-91, 228-246.
  13. Newman and Principe, "Alchemy vs. Chemistry: The Etymological Origins of a Historiographic Mistake," in Early Science and Medicine 3(1998), pp. 32-65 and "Some Problems with the Historiography of Alchemy," in Secrets of Nature: Astrology and Alchemy in Early Modern Europe (volume of articles co-edited by Newman and Anthony Grafton), (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001), pp. 385-431.
  14. Newman, "The Significance of 'Chymical Atomism'," in Sylla and Newman, eds., Evidence and Interpretation: Studies on Early Science and Medicine in Honor of John E. Murdoch (Leiden: Brill, 2009), pp. 248-264.
  15. "Partington Winners". Ambix.org. Retrieved 2012-05-31.
  16. "Academy prizes | International Academy of the History of Science". Aihs-iahs.org. 1991-02-06. Retrieved 2012-05-31.
  17. HSS Pfizer Prize Winners
  18. "View Past Public Lectures - Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics". Perimeterinstitute.ca. Retrieved 2012-05-31.
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