Professor of History
B.A., Colgate University; M.A., Western Washington University; Ph.D., University of British Columbia
Kelly J. Whitmer’s research and teaching focuses on the intersection of the history of science and medicine with youth culture, pedagogy, religion and emotion in the early modern world. She studies the history of collections, scientific communities and future-focused forms of social experimentation and offers a range of courses at Sewanee, from seminars on collecting and empire (“Monsters, Marvels and Museums”) to an introductory level course on “Science, Society and the Archives.” Whitmer received funding for development of the latter from the Associated Colleges of the South.
Whitmer’s new book, Useful Natures: Science and the Power of Youth in Early Modernity, recovers the largely untold story of science’s preoccupation with the power of the young, including their heightened capacities to “know use” and to embody playful, yet productive, forms of physical labor. It focuses on a pivotal moment in the history of science when scholars, physicians, teachers and administrators began calling for intensified investigations of the young body, particularly its tendency to play and to move constantly and to deploy tools and materials strategically. Drawing much needed attention to science’s fascination with youth’s power, Useful Nature(s) highlights efforts to derive benefit from the young person’s relationship to the future and potential to dramatically reconfigure knowledge-making practices and communities.
The Useful Nature(s) project has been supported by a Herzog-Ernst-Scholarship at the Forschungszentrum Gotha (FZG) Universität Erfurt, a fellowship from the Marbach Weimar Wolfenbüttel Forschungsverbund (MWW) and a research fellowship from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. With colleagues from the Georg August University of Göttingen and the University of Hamburg she convened a workshop on “Object Pedagogies and Academic Collections in the History of Science'' (funded by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation) in September 2021.
With colleagues Vera Keller and Ted McCormick, she is currently guest editing a 2025 special issue of the Journal of the History of Knowledge entitled "Knowledge and Power: Projecting the Modern World." A description of this special issue can be found here.
Whitmer’s first book, The Halle Orphanage as Scientific Community (UCP, c2015), explored the Halle Orphanage (founded c. 1700) as a key institutional venue for the pursuit of collaborative scientific research, focusing specifically on the organization’s promotion of eclecticism as a tool for assimilating perspectives and becoming an able observer. She developed the project as a postdoctoral fellow at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and received support from Sewanee and the Appalachian College Association as well. Whitmer's work on the Halle Orphanage has been reviewed mostly recently in the American Historical Review, featured on the New Books Network, in an H-Ideas Blog focused on premodern Universities and in discussions about space and collections in Halle, Leipzig and Dresden.
Selected Publications (recent):
2024 "Introduction to Special Issue: Collections and Pedagogies of Objects in European Learning Environments" with Dominik Hünniger, Nuncius: Journal of the Material and Visual History of Science (Brill), forthcoming
2024 “Dendrites as objects of care and speculation: teaching with mineral-paleontological collections at the University of Göttingen in the early eighteenth century” in Nuncius: Journal of the Material and Visual History of Science (Brill), forthcoming
2023 “Chapter Seven: Belief and Ideology,” in A Cultural History of Youth in the Age of Enlightenment, edited by Adriana Benzaquen. London: Bloomsbury Press
2022 “Putting Play to Work: Collections of Realia and Useful Play in Early Modern Educational Reform Efforts,” in Collective Wisdom: Collecting in the Early Modern Academy, edited by Vera Keller and Anna Marie Roos (Turnhout: Brepols), 39-6
2020 “Wunderkind, redefined: Jean-Philippe Baratier and Halle’s culture of innovation, c. 1700,” in Innovationsuniversität Halle? Neuheit und Innovation als historische und als historiographische Kategorien, edited by Daniel Fulda and Andreas Pecar. Berlin/ Munich/ Boston: DeGruyter
2019 “Reimagining the ‘nature of children’: Realia, reform and the turn to pedagogical realism in central Europe, c. 1600 – 1700,” Journal of the History of Childhood and Youth 12
2018 (with Larry Stewart), “Introduction: Expectations and utility in eighteenth century knowledge economies,” Special Issue of Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science 72 (2018), pp. 1-7
2018 “Projects and pedagogical expectations: Inside P.J. Marperger’s ‘Golden Clover Leaf’ (Trifolium), 1700-1730,” Notes and Records: The Royal Society Journal of the History of Science Special Issue 72, pp. 139 – 157
2017 “Imagining Uses for Things: Teaching ‘Useful Knowledge’ in the Early Eighteenth Century,” History of Science 55, pp. 37-60
AREAS OF EXPERTISE
Early Modern Europe, Germany, Atlantic World
History of Science, Medicine, and Technology; History of Scientific Observation, Collections
History of Youth and Childhood
History of Education
