Dissertation Research: Christiaan Huygens: The Construction of Texts and Audiences

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There are two primary goals for this dissertation research project. The first is to provide a close examination of the career of Christiaan Huygens (1629-1695) by looking at his publication practices. Huygens was a central figure in the seventeenth century; therefore, a better understanding of his career, and how it developed across intellectual, social and political lines, would significantly add to the history of science in this period. By looking at the individuals with whom he shared his work through the circulation of presentation copies, this project will follow the transitions and movements Huygens made from one peer group to another, including the Royal Society of London, and the French Royal Academy. Not only will this elucidate Huygens' intellectual and social migrations, but more generally it will reveal a great deal about how natural philosophy functioned in this period. The second aim of this project is to use Huygens' career as a case study for understanding how dedicatory copies of texts could be distributed, and what strategies were involved in the presentation of such gifts. Correspondence exists which records the recipients Huygens selected for most of his works, and letters from many recipients are extant as well. These lists will be examined for each of Huygens' works, and the recipients evaluated and compared in an attempt to understand what audiences he was targeting. Huygens was not alone in his efforts to construct audiences for his books through careful distribution patterns. Thus, his efforts will be compared to others from the period, including Tycho Brahe, Galileo and Newton. From this a more complete picture of the various roles of dedicatory texts will emerge.