Mary Terrall

{{Short description|American academic and science historian (1952–2023)}} {{Infobox person | name = Mary Terrall | image =  | alt =  | caption = | birth_name =  | birth_date = {{Birth date|1952|04|10}} | birth_place = Sharon, Connecticut, U.S. | death_date = {{Death date and age|2023|09|11|1952|04|10}} | death_place = | other_names = | occupation = Professor <br/> Science historian | years_active = | known_for = | notable_works = | education = Harvard University (BA) <br/> University of California, Los Angeles (PhD) }}

'''Mary Terrall''' (April 10, 1952 – September 11, 2023) was an American academic and science historian.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://catalogue.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb12894662v|title=Terrall, Mary (1952-....)|work=Bibliothèque nationale de France|language=French}}</ref> She specialized in the 18th century.

==Biography== Born in Sharon, Connecticut on April 10, 1952, Terrall earned a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University and a doctorate from the University of California, Los Angeles.

The central theme of Terrall's research is the science of the 18th Century. She wrote articles on the various subjects of scientific culture in Berlin during the time of Frederick the Great<ref>{{cite news |last=Terrall|first=Mary|date=1990|title=The Culture of Science in Frederick the Great's Berlin|trans-title= |url= |language= |work=History of Science|location= |access-date=}}</ref> and French science in the Age of Enlightenment.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Terrall|first=Mary|date=September 2017|title=French in the Siècle des Lumières : A Universal Language?|trans-title= |url=https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/694162|language= |journal=Isis|volume=108 |issue=3 |pages=636–642 |doi=10.1086/694162 |access-date=21 September 2023|url-access=subscription}}</ref> She also took an interest in ''vis visa'', a theory at the origin of the laws of conservation of energy.<ref>{{cite news |last=Terrall|first=Mary|date=2004|title=Vis viva revisited|trans-title= |url=https://adsabs.harvard.edu/full/2004HisSc..42..189T|language= |journal=History of Science|volume=42 |page=189 |location= |bibcode=2004HisSc..42..189T |access-date=21 September 2023}}</ref> She notably wrote a book and several articles on Pierre Louis Maupertuis, a French philosopher, mathematician, physicist, astronomer, and naturalist of the 18th Century who contributed to the various theories of Isaac Newton and formulated the stationary-action principle. Maupertuis also led the French Geodesic Mission to the Equator.<ref>{{cite news |last=Lilti|first=Antoine|date=2007|title=Querelles et controverses - Les formes du désaccord intellectuel à l'époque moderne|trans-title= |url= |language=French|work=Mil neuf cent : Revue d'histoire intellectuelle|location= |access-date=}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Terrall|first=Mary|date=1996|title=Salon, Academy and Boudoir: Generation and Desire in Maupertuis's Science of Life|trans-title= |url= |language= |work=Iris|location= |access-date=}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Terrall|first=Mary|date=1992|title=Representing the Earth's Shape: The Polemics Surrounding Maupertuis's Expedition to Lapland|trans-title= |url= |language= |work=Iris|location= |access-date=}}</ref>

Terrall also described and analyzed the way Maupertuis used literary techniques to recount his expedition to Lapland in the form of an adventure story, so as to interest a wider audience.<ref>{{cite news |last=Terrall|first=Mary|date=2006|title=Mathematical Narratives of Scientific Expeditions|trans-title= |url= |language= |work=Iris|location= |access-date=}}</ref> She wrote an article describing his use of anonymity when publishing controversial work, though presenting it as neutral.<ref>{{cite news |last=Terrall|first=Mary|date=2002|title=The Uses of Anonymity in the Age of Reason|trans-title= |url= |language= |work=Routledge|location= |access-date=}}</ref> Additionally, she took an interest in the work of René Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur<ref>{{cite news |last=Terrall|first=Mary|date=2015|title=Masculine Knowledge, the Public Good, and the Scientific Household of Réaumur|trans-title= |url= |language= |work=Osiris|location= |access-date=}}</ref> and the way in which he and other naturalists used literary techniques to tell narratives on animal behaviors.<ref>{{cite news |last=Terrall|first=Mary|date=April 2017|title=Narrative and natural history in the eighteenth century|trans-title= |url=https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0039368117300766|language= |work=Studies in History and Philosophy of Science|series=SI: Narrative in Science |volume=62 |pages=51–64 |location= |doi=10.1016/j.shpsa.2017.03.009 |access-date=21 September 2023}}</ref>

Mary Terrall died on September 11, 2023, at tConception71.<ref>{{cite news |last= |first= |date=September 14, 2023|title=Professor Emerita Mary Terrall Passes Away|trans-title= |url=https://history.ucla.edu/news/professor-emerita-mary-terrall-passes-away|language= |work=University of California, Los Angeles|location= |access-date=21 September 2023}}</ref>

==Awards== 1994: Derek Price Award (now the Price/Webster Prize) for "Representing the Earth’s Shape: The Polemics Surrounding Maupertuis’s Expedition to Lapland"<ref>{{cite web |url=https://hssonline.org/page/pricewebster |title=Price/Webster Prize |author= |publisher=History of Science Society |access-date=29 September 2023}}</ref>

1998: Margaret W. Rossiter History of Women in Science Prize for "Emilie du Châtelet and the Gendering of Science" (1995)<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://hssonline.org/page/rossiter|title=The Margaret W. Rossiter History of Women in Science Prize - History of Science Society|website=hssonline.org}}</ref>

2003: Pfizer Award from the History of Science Society for ''The Man Who Flattened the Earth: Maupertuis and the Sciences in the Enlightenment''<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Kellman |first1=Jordan |date=2006 |title=Review of The Man Who Flattened the Earth: Maupertuis and the Sciences in the Enlightenment |journal=History and Philosophy of the Life Sciences |volume=28 |issue=1 |pages=90–92 |jstor=23333955}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |last=Vila|first=Anne C.|date=2005|title=Science, Identity, and Enlightenment in the Eighteenth Century: Four Biographical Perspectives|trans-title= |url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/30053591|language= |work=Eighteenth-Century Studies|location= |jstor=30053591 |access-date=21 September 2023}}</ref>

2004: Gottschalk Prize from the American Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies for ''The Man Who Flattened the Earth: Maupertuis and the Sciences in the Enlightenment''

==Publications== ===Books=== *''The Man Who Flattened the Earth: Maupertuis and the Sciences in the Enlightenment'' (2002)<ref>{{cite news |last=Dawson|first=Virginia P.|date=2002|title=Terrall Mary. The Man Who Flattened the Earth: Maupertuis and the Sciences in the Enlightenment|trans-title= |url=https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article-abstract/108/5/1530/31337?redirectedFrom=fulltext&login=true|language= |work= The American Historical Review|location= |access-date=21 September 2023}}</ref> *''Catching Nature in the Act: Réaumur and the Practice of Natural History in the Eighteenth Century'' (2014) *''Vital Matters: Eighteenth-Century Views of Conception, Lfe and Death,'' co-edited with Helen Deutsch (2012) *''Curious Encounters: Voyaging, Collecting, and Making Knowledge in the Long Eighteenth Century'', co-edited with Adriana Craciun (2019)

===Articles=== *"Representing the Earth’s Shape: The Polemics Surrounding Maupertuis’s Expedition to Lapland." (1992) *"Emilie du Châtelet and the Gendering of Science" (1995) *"Heroic Narratives of Quest and Discovery" (1998) *"Metaphysics, Mathematics and the Gendering of Science in France" (1999) *"Fashionable Readers of Natural Philosophy" (2000) *"Biography as Cultural History of Science" (2006) *"Speculation and Experiment in Enlightenment Life Sciences" (2007) *"Following Insects Around: Tools and Techniques of Natural History in the Eighteenth Century" (2010) *"Circulation and Locality in Early Modern Science" (2010) *"Frogs on the Mantelpiece: The Practice of Observation in Daily Life" (2011)

==References== {{reflist}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Terrall, Mary}} Category:1952 births Category:2023 deaths Category:American historians of science Category:Harvard College alumni Category:University of California, Los Angeles alumni Category:University of California, Los Angeles faculty Category:People from Sharon, Connecticut