Prof Geoffrey Cantor

Professor of the History of Science
University of Leeds

London, United Kingdom

Biography

Professor Geoffrey Cantor trained as a Physicist, gaining his PhD in radiophysics at King's College, London. While pursuing this research he discovered History and Philosophy of Science and started taking courses with Larry Laudan in that new and exciting subject, while teaching Physics at a school. The HPS department at the University of Indiana beckoned and enabled him to retrain as an historian. He has spent most of his professional life teaching HPS at the University of Leeds, where he has moved progressively from the history of physics to historical studies of science and religion. The initial project that bridged the two areas resulted in his Michael Faraday, Sandemanian and Scientist (1991). With John Hedley Brooke he delivered the 1995-6 Gifford Lectures at Glasgow, which were published as Reconstructing Nature: The Engagement of Science and Religion (1998). With Jacqui Stewart he co-directed the Centre for Science and Religion at Leeds University.

In 2005 his Quakers, Jews and Science was published by Oxford University Press which also published his most recent book Religion and the Great Exhibition of 1851 (2011). He also co-edited with Thomas Dixon and Stephen Punfrey Science and Religion, New Historical Perspectives (2010), which contains papers from the 2007 Lancaster conference marking the retirement of John Hedley Brooke. Now himself retired, Geoffrey Cantor lives in London and has an honorary position at University College London. His present project is a four-volume collection of primary sources on the 1851 Exhibition, to be published by Pickering & Chatto in 2013.

Honoraria Titles

Major Prizes

Religion, Philosophy & History Interests

Christianity-Protestantism, History of Religion, History of Science, Judaism

Science & Technology Interests

Evolution, Physics

Publications

Religion and the Great Exhibition of 1851

Oxford University Press 2011
http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780199596676.do?

Jewish Tradition and the Challenge of Darwinism (edited volume)

Chicago University Press 2006
Co-authors: Eds: Geoffrey Cantor & Marc Swetlitz
www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/198247.ctl

Quakers, Jews, and Science: Religious Responses to Modernity and the Sciences in Britain, 1650-1900

Oxford University Press 2005
www.us.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/ReligionTheology/Theology/

Culture and Science in the Nineteenth-Century Media (edited volume)

Ashgate 2004
Co-authors: Eds: Louise Henson, Geoffrey Cantor, Gowan Dawson, Richard Noakes, Sally Shuttleworth & Jonathan R. Topham,
https://www.ashgate.com/shopping/title.asp?key1=&key2=&orig=results&isbn=0%207546%203574%200

Science Serialized: Representations of the Sciences in Nineteenth Century Periodicals (edited volume)

MIT Press 2004
Co-authors: Eds: Geoffrey Cantor & Sally Shuttleworth
mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10147

Science in the Nineteenth-Century Periodical: Reading the Magazine of Nature,

Cambridge University Press 2004
Co-authors: Geoffrey Cantor, Gowan Dawson, Graeme Gooday, Richard Noakes, Sally Shuttleworth & Jonathan R. Topham,
www.cambridge.org/uk/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=0521836379

Reconstructing Nature: The Engagement of Science and Religion, The 1995-6 Gifford Lectures at Glasgow,

T & T Clark, 1998; paperback edition, Oxford University Press, 2000
Co-authors: John Hedley Brooke & Geoffrey Cantor,
www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/ReligionTheology/Theology/?view=usa&ci=9780195137064

Companion to the History of Modern Science (edited volume)

Routledge 1990
Co-authors: Eds: R.C.Olby, G.N. Cantor, J.R.R.Christie and M.J.S. Hodge,
www.ebookmall.com/ebooks/companion-to-the-history-of-modern-science-olby-cantor-christie-ebooks.htm www.routledge.com/shopping_cart/products/product_detail.asp? sku=&isbn=9780415145787&parent_id=&pc=/shopping_cart/search/search.asp?search%3Dcantor

Science and Religion: New Historical Perspectives

Cambridge University Press 2010
Co-authors: Thomas Dixon & Stephen Pumfrey

Anglo-Jewry in 1851: The Great Exhibition and Political Emancipation

2012
Volume:44
Pages:103–26

Science, Providence, and Progress at the Great Exhibition

2012
Volume:103
Pages:439–59