Carolyn Merchant

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Carolyn Merchant (born July 12, 1936 in Rochester , New York ) is an American philosopher and science historian, best known for her contributions to ecofeminism . In particular her book “The Death of Nature. Ecology, Women and Modern Science ”became very well known. In it, she addresses the Enlightenment as a period in which modern science, especially in the form of empiricism , was invented and thus nature was atomized and objectified. Her research and journalistic work was central to the development of environmental history and the history of science . As a professor of environmental history, philosophy and ethics , she taught at Berkeley University .

Live and act

By 1954, Carolyn Merchant graduated from Monroe High School in Rochester. In her senior year at school, she was among the top ten finalists in the Westinghouse Talent Search for Science, which later earned her an EB Fred Scholarship from the University of Wisconsin-Madison . Previously, she completed a chemistry degree at Vassar College , an elite university in New York State , and graduated in 1958 with a bachelor's degree . She then moved to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, look out for the Masters in 1962 still a Ph.D. in History of Science in 1967.

From 1969 to 1974 and 1976 to 1978 she taught history of science in the physics and natural sciences department at the University of San Francisco . At Oregon State University she took on a visiting professorship in 1969. After a visiting professorship in 1975, she taught at the University of California Berkeley from 1979. In 1986 she was appointed professor of environmental history, philosophy and ethics and remained so until her retirement. During a study visit to Murdoch University Perth ( Australia ) in 1991 , Merchant taught ecofeminism .

Carolyn Merchant has published numerous literary works dealing with the interaction between humans and their natural habitat. Merchant examined trends and behaviors that individuals develop over time. She also began to focus on ecology and women's movements and their development in society. Her books have been translated into German, Italian, Swedish, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, French and Spanish.

The publication The Death of Nature. Ecology, Women and Modern Science is her best-known book. Merchant addresses the central position of social gender in the historiography of modern science. In addition, she examines "the sexist assumptions that shaped sixteenth and seventeenth-century ideas about the universe and human physiology". Merchant also explains the importance of gender in the early modern writings on nature.

“Carolyn Merchant takes inspiration from Horkheimer and Adorno's argument that the Enlightenment was characterized by the fact that nature was ruled by men and that human power is part of that rule . Merchant was particularly interested in how patriarchal power - men dominate women - is a characteristic of man's rule over nature and the natural world. "

Honorary positions

Merchant has been a member of the Society for the History of Science since 1962. From 1973 to 1974 she chaired the Committee on Women in Science, and from 1992 to 1994 she was co-chair. In the Society for the History of Science of the West Coast, she was its co-chair from 1971–1972.

Merchant has been a member of the American Society for Environmental History since 1980 and was temporarily its president. She was one of the editors of the Environmental Review and was a member of the Rachel Carson Award Committee for Best Dissertation .

Merchant has been a member of the Society of Women Geographers since 1985.

Books

  • The Death of Nature: Women, Ecology, and the Scientific Revolution (EV 1980) . HarperOne, San Francisco 1990, ISBN 978-0-0625-0595-8 .
  • Ecological Revolutions: Nature, Gender, and Science in New England. University of Nort Carolina, Chapel Hill 1989, ISBN 978-0-80784-254-6 .
  • Radical Ecology: The Search for a Livable World. Routledge, New York 1992, ISBN 978-0-415-90650-0 .
  • Major Problems in American Environment (EV 1993), Wadsworth, Boston 2005, ISBN 978-0-495-91242-2 .
  • Earthcare: Women and the Environment (EV 1996). Routledge, New York 2013, ISBN 978-0-415-90888-7 .
  • The Columbia Guide to American Environmental History. Columbia University Press, New York 2002, ISBN 978-0-231-11233-8 .
  • Reinventing Eden: The Fate of Nature in Western Culture. Routledge, New York 2003, ISBN 978-0-415-93164-9 .
  • American Environmental History: An Introduction. Columbia University Press, New York 2007, ISBN 978-0-231-14035-5 .
  • Autonomous Nature: Problems of Prediction and Control from Ancient Times to the Scientific Revolution. Routledge, New York 2015, ISBN 978-1-138-93099-5 .
  • Save the Birds! Yale University Press, New Haven 2016 ISBN 978-0-300-21545-8 .
  • Science and Nature: Past, Present, and Future. Routledge, New York 2018, ISBN 978-1-138-08404-9 .
  • The Origin of Disease: The War Within. Authorhouse, Bloomington 2018, ISBN 978-1-5462-5980-0 .
  • The Anthropocene and the Humanities. Yale University Press, New Haven 2020, ISBN 978-0-300-24423-6 .

Awards

Carolyn Merchant has received various grants and awards for individual works as well as for her life's work.

She was also a Guggenheim Fellow , Fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences ( Stanford University ), John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur-Fellow in the Ecological Humanities at the National Humanities Center.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ International Who's Who of Authors and Writers 2004 . 19th edition. Psychology Press, London / New York 2004, ISBN 1-85743-179-0 , pp. 382 ( books.google.de ).
  2. ↑ Kenneth M. Dolbeare: American Political Thought . 4th edition. Chatham House Publishers, Chatham, NJ 1998, ISBN 0-585-25821-X , pp. 523 .
  3. ↑ ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: Carolyn Merchant ) Berkeley@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / ecnr.berkeley.edu
  4. ↑ Russell Schoch: ( Page no longer available , search in web archives: A conversation with Carolyn Merchant (2002) ) In: California Monthly Volume 112, No. 6, June 2002.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.mindfully.org
  5. ^ Remarkable Rochester. Retrieved March 26, 2020 (English).
  6. ^ Anne Becher: American environmental leaders: from Colonial times to the present . Ed .: University of Michigan. ABC-CLIO, 2000, ISBN 978-1-57607-162-5 .
  7. ↑ a b Carolyn Merchant: CV. In: University of California Berkeley. Retrieved March 26, 2020 (English).
  8. ↑ Katharine Park: Women, Gender, and Utopia: The Death of Nature and the Historiography of Early Modern Science . In: Isis . 97, No. 3, January 1, 2006, pp. 487-495. doi : 10.1086 / 508078 .
  9. ↑ Duncan Hall: Carolyn Merchant. In: tutor2u: Politics. March 26, 2020, accessed on March 26, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Carolyn Merchant's résumé on the UC Berkeley website. Accessed October 1, 2017 .
personal data
SURNAME Merchant, Carolyn
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American philosopher and science historian
DATE OF BIRTH July 12, 1936
PLACE OF BIRTH Rochester , New York