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Photo by Reed Hutchinson UCLA
Photographic Services
Margaret Jacob studies the history of science. |
faculty research lecturer
Her excellent adventure into Europe's past
BY MEG SULLIVAN
UCLA Today
As an aspiring nun at a small Catholic college in Brooklyn in
the early 1960s, Margaret “Peg” Jacob established herself
as a troublemaker.
“A group of us published an underground newspaper, which
we called The Lutheran,” the professor of history recently
recalled, chortling. “That’s how subversive we got.”
Ever since, Jacob has been fascinated by what she calls “the
turn toward the secular.”
Today, the noted historian of science is revered for shedding
light on how the scientific and theoretical advancements of the
Enlightenment worked their way into the mainstream of 17th- and
18th-century life — an intellectual adventure that takes her
from Europe’s lowly factories to its bustling stock exchanges.
She’s particularly well-known for uncovering the role played
by the Masonic fraternal organization in spreading secular concepts
first promoted by such 17th-century giants as Isaac Newton. She
is also a pioneer in establishing a clear link between Newton’s
scientific advancements and the birth of the Industrial Revolution.
Along with 10 other faculty, the historian, who joined UCLA six
years ago from the University of Pennsylvania, is credited with
establishing the university as one of the nation’s leaders
in the history of science and medicine.
Primarily for these reasons, the author and co-author of 10 books
has been selected to give UCLA’s 96th Faculty Research Lecture,
the highest honor the university bestows on faculty.
For the April 15 event, Jacob plans to discuss “cosmopolitanism,”
the topic of her forthcoming book “Glimpses of the Cosmopolitan
in Early Modern Europe.”
“ ‘Cosmopolitan’ means you have the ability
to accept the foreign — the strange, the different,”
she explained. “It’s part of the notion that there’s
a larger humanity that you strive to understand.”
Of enduring importance in a democracy, such values have taken
on special urgency since the terrorist acts of 2001, she contended.
“One of the shocks that 9/11 delivered was the realization
that there are people who hate, who really, really hate and who
deny the virtues of the cosmopolitan,” she said. “The
danger now is that we will also abandon the values of the cosmopolitan
and start thinking we are superior to others or that we’ve
got some purchase on civilization.”
All that may sound lofty, but Jacob doesn’t come across
that way. The daughter of an auto mechanic and a housekeeper with
a third-grade education, she is a great raconteur with an infectious
laugh. Her ability to boil difficult concepts down to easily understood
and vivid terms has made her a darling of the Los Angeles Times
Book Review section and a popular teacher among undergraduates.
“My signature course is ‘Science, Magic & Religion
— 1600 to the Present,’ ” she said. “I get
every witch on campus.”
The Faculty Research Lecture begins at 3 p.m. in Schoenberg
Auditorium. A case exhibit featuring Jacob’s work is on view
through April in the Young Research Library lobby. |
