This book considers scientific performances across two centuries from the early nineteenth
century to the present day. Performances include demonstrations of technologies experiments
that look like theatre theatre that looks like science tourist representations and natural
history film-making. Its key aim is to open debate on how scientific activity both historical
and contemporary might be understood in the context of performance studies and the imaginative
acts required to stage engaging performances. Scientific performances have become increasingly
of interest to historians of science literature and science scholars and in the field of
science studies. As yet however no work has sought to examine a range of scientific
performances with the aim of interrogating and illuminating the kinds of critical and
theoretical practices that might be employed to engage with them. With scientific performance
likely to become ever more central to scholarly study in the next few years this volume offer a
timely and early intervention in the existing debates and aims too to be a touchstone for
future work.
