Useful Nature(s)
Science, Pedagogy and the Power of Youth in Early Modern Central Europe
By (author) Kelly J. Whitmer
Hardback (Published)
(April 2026)
ISBN: 9782503619415
7.01 x 10 inches
Price: $100.00
In stock
The study of youth
remains a tantalizing prospect in the sciences today, particularly as a means
of extending life. Many institutions rely on the flexibility, cheaper labor
and creative approaches to problem solving that young people often carry with
them into research and professional environments. Now, as in the past,
practitioners of the sciences are drawn to evidence of intellectual precocity
or signs of premature ingenuity. Useful Nature(s) recovers the largely untold
story of science’s preoccupation with the power of the young, including their
heightened capacities to “know use” and to embody playful, yet productive,
forms of physical labor. It focuses on a pivotal moment in the history of
early modern Central European communities, when scholars, physicians,
teachers and administrators began calling for intensified investigations of
the young body, particularly its tendency to play, to move constantly,
and to deploy tools and materials strategically. Drawing much needed
attention to science’s fascination with youth’s power, Useful Nature(s)
highlights efforts to derive benefit from the young person’s relationship to
the future and potential to dramatically reconfigure knowledge-making
practices and communities.
Introduction: Young and Useful Natures
Chapter 1. Coconut palm: Cultivating Trees of a Thousand Uses
Chapter 2. School: Imitation and Realia in the School of Play
Chapter 3. Games & Collections: Purposeful Nature(s): Youth as Players, Collectors and Economists
Chapter 4. Prodigy: The Body Of the Prodigy: Precocity and Futurity in the Young Ingenium
Conclusion
Kelly J. Whitmer is Professor of History at Sewanee: The University of the South. Her first book (*The Halle Orphanage as Scientific Community: Observation, Eclecticism and Pietism in the Early Enlightenment*) was published by the University of Chicago Press in 2015. Her research and professional collaborations have been supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science (MPIWG), the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, the Fulbright program and more.
- By (author) Kelly J. Whitmer
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