The Form of Becoming: Embryology and the Epistemology of Rhythm 1760–1830 by Janina Wellmann (review)

Abstract

and adapt the technologies of knowledge and become a center for the communicative functions of modern sciences” (213). For the readers of the Goethe Yearbook, the description of the selection of Berlin as the site for the modern research university could also illuminate the topic of knowledge management in Weimar. Even though Wellmon does not explicitly mention Weimar, some of the criteria that identified Berlin as the site of the university applied, to some degree, to Weimar’s cultural ambitions as well. The range of art collections, botanical collections, publishing houses, the university in Jena, the Zeichenschule, the botanical gardens, and the scientific lectures of the “Naturwissenschaftliche Gesellschaft” were seen as creating a particularly productive symbiotic relationship for the advancement of knowledge. This very informative, well-argued study is especially useful in the context of eighteenth-century knowledge networks and provides an important backdrop for studies interested in the book, in science, in the popular press, and in other forms of knowledge management. In addition, it provides a welcome historical dimension and a discursive sophistication to the current challenges to the research university in general—and the humanities in particular—as we wrestle with our own roles as critical scholars at this current historical moment.