Home STəPS > People > Roberts

Prof.dr. L.L. Roberts (Lissa)

Background

Lissa Roberts is professor of long term development of science and technology at the University of Twente. She received her PhD in European cultural and intellectual history at U.C.L.A., where she wrote a dissertation entitled From Natural Theology to Naturalism: Diderot and the Perception of Rapports. Since that time, she has held positions at a number of universities in both the United States (including UCLA, University of California at Irvine, Washington University and San Diego State University) and the Netherlands. She now heads the STeP’s research program on ‘long term development of science and technology’.

Research

Roberts’ current interests are oriented around three broad themes: 1] tracing the historical evolution and transgressions of the (claimed) divide between ‘science’ and ‘technology’; 2] investigating science and technology as co-evolutionary constituents of the broader context in which they develop; 3] understanding entrepreneurialism and innovation in historical context. This can be seen in her current research and recent publications, which focus on topics including eighteenth-century chemistry, the early development and application of steam technology, ‘entrepreneurial engineers’ and the cultural history of science and technology in and around Tokugawa Japan.

Teaching

Roberts is coordinator of the undergraduate Minor in History.

She also teaches core courses for the masters program PSTS.

165250 The History of Science and Technology

162251 Technology and Social Order

Selected Publications

“Geographies of steam: mapping the entrepreneurial activities of steam engineers in France during the second half of the eighteenth century”, Lissa Roberts, History and Technology, 27:4, 417-439. (2011)

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2011.622151

Collecting points: centres of accumulation and the production of knowledge in the early modern period (LIT Verlag/Palgrave, forthcoming).

The mindful hand in global perspective, with Ian Inkster (special issue of History of Technology, 2009).

The brokered world: Go-betweens and global intelligence, 1770-1820, with Simon Schaffer, Kapil Raj and James Delbourgo (Science History Publications, 2009).

“Situating science in global history: Local exchanges and networks of circulation,” Lissa Roberts, ed., Science and global history, 1750-1850: Local encounters and global circulation (special issue of Itinerario, 2009).

The mindful hand: Inquiry and invention from the late Renaissance to early industrialization, Lissa Roberts, Simon Schaffer and Peter Dear (eds) (KNAW, Amsterdam: 2007).

The Places of Chemistry in 18^th Century England and the Netherlands, with Rina Knoeff (special issue of Ambix, Journal of the Society for the History of Alchemy and Chemistry, 2007).

Wetenschap is cultuur, with Simon Schaffer and Steven Shapin (Balans Uitgeverij, November 2005)

“Rouelle and the Theatricalization of Chemistry,” Bernadette Bensaude and Christine Blondel, eds., Science and Spectacle (Ashgate Press, 2008).

“An Arcadian Apparatus: Steam engines and landscapes in the history of Dutch culture,”Technology and Culture (2004).

“The Death of the Sensuous Chemist: The changing role of sense evidence in the establishment of modern chemistry,” David Howes, ed., Sensual Culture Reader (Berg Press, 2004).

“A World of Wonders, a World of One,” Pamela Smith and Paula Findlen, eds., Merchants and Marvels: Commerce and the Representation of Nature in Early Modern Europe (Routledge, 2001)

“Water, Steam and Change: The Roles of Land Drainage, Water Supplies and Garden Fountains in the Early Development of the Steam Engine,” Endeavour (2000).

“Science Becomes Electric: The electrical machine in Dutch History,” Isis (1999)

“Going Dutch: A cultural history of Dutch science in the eighteenth century,” W. Clark, J. Golinski, S. Schaffer, eds., The Sciences in Enlightened Europe (University of Chicago Press, 1999).

The Chemical Revolution: Contexts and Practices (special issue of Eighteenth century: Theory and interpretation, 1992).