The Great New Jersey Drone Panic may be receding into the mists of 2024, but as we enter the new year searching for portents and wonders, let’s take a moment to think about things in the sky with Claire Goldstein. I’m already seeing the shimmery outlines of a lesson plan: grab a 17th-century source or two from Goldstein’s hot take, pair it with some examples of the recent drone-mania and ask your students to look at the sky. - CH
Detail from: Andre Stech delin., L[ambert] Visscher sculp., frontispiece of Johannes Hevelius, Cometographia (Gdani: Simon Reiniger, 1668).
In the “Avis au lecteur” by the fictional “editor” of the anonymous first edition of a book that would come to be known in...
Helena Taylor, Science in the Salon: Atoms and Animals in Madeleine de Scudéry’s 'Conversations' (1680–92). An Essay and Translation, OpenBook Publisher, 2026.