David C. Lindberg, the esteemed historian of science, died
on Tuesday, January 6th, 2015.
When I sat down to write this post, the challenge of
summarizing Dave Lindberg’s life inevitably overwhelmed me. I arrived in
Wisconsin’s History of Science department as a grad student about six years after he
officially retired. Dave, however, never retreated from department life and I
got the opportunity to interact with him. His death was, of course, sad to
anyone that knew him—and, no doubt, to the many that knew him by reputation
alone—but there’s something particularly tragic about a brilliant mind
succumbing to Alzheimer’s disease. Given the nature of the disease, I think
it’s especially important for those of us lucky enough to have participated in
the community that he nurtured, to record and share our memories of him.
Dave lived in the Midwest for most of his life, growing up
in Minnesota, receiving his PhD from the Department of History and Philosophy of Science
at Indiana University Bloomington, and spending the rest of his career in the Department
of the History of Science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His numerous publications contributed considerably to our understanding of medieval and
early-modern science, with a special focus on the history of optics and the intersection
between science and religion. At Wisconsin, he was instrumental in developing
the syllabus and textbooks for large undergraduate survey courses, spanning the
classical origins of scientific inquiry up to the development of modern scientific
thought.
A few weeks ago, Evan Hepler-Smith posted a piece on this
blog—“What
is the regional history of American Science?”—that explored the
role of place in American science studies. It got me thinking about the Midwestern
lineage of American history of science, cultivated in the large departments at
Wisconsin, Indiana, and Oklahoma. In my mind, Dave represented a
quintessential example of a Midwestern historian of science: catholic in his
scholarly interests, he brought Midwestern character to his teaching and
mentorship through his generous, patient, and convivial spirit. In my first few
weeks of graduate school, Dave made it clear to me that the
department was not only a place of academic training, but also a community of
friends. He offered, for example, to make me a bookcase one afternoon as I was
on my way to the required seminar on historiography and methods. By this time, Dave
had been emeritus for years, but his enthusiasm and care for incoming graduate
students never diminished. Long before that, he had established the
department’s Friday Brown Bag lunch tradition, an informal gathering for
students and faculty to discuss the field. He regularly hosted parties at his
house with his wife, Greta, and created a fellowship for students interested in
science and religion. Dave believed in an academic community that not only
fostered intellectual development, but one that thrived when its participants
offered each other sincere support in multiple forms.
Matt
Lavine—a fellow alumnus of Wisconsin’s History of Science department and
current assistant professor at Mississippi State University—recently shared how
Dave handled his lecture for an undergraduate survey course on September 11th,
2001:
… [Dave] decided not to lecture
on the pre-Socratics that day. I'm sure nobody who held classes was really
sticking to the lesson plan. Instead, he gave an impromptu hour-long lecture on
the history and culture of Islam. This was four hours into 9/11; nobody really
knew for sure who was responsible, but you were already hearing talk about
reprisals against mosques or people of Middle Eastern descent or Sikhs mistaken
for Muslims. The content of what he spoke about wasn't terribly deep or
pointed; it was really just a decent overview. Obviously his purpose was to
pour some oil on the waters by reminding his frightened audience of the basic
truths of the situation: that "Islam" covered a fantastically large
and diverse segment of humanity, that the vast majority of Muslims regarded
these kinds of actions as unrecognizable perversions of their faith, that
"terrorism" wasn't the simple result of Bad People and Wrong
Religion, and so forth.
... I'm
sure he did more good just by speaking calmly and objectively about the real
human experience bound up in the long history of Islam, trusting his students
to put the pieces together for themselves.
There's so much more that can
and will be said about the good works he did, most of which he wanted no credit
for. He had a lot of truly fine accomplishments. But they happened among hundreds
of little moments like this, and in the end I think they were the greater part
of his legacy.
I think Matt articulated precisely what I want to say about
Dave in this piece. His scholarly legacy is momentous, but he imparted so much
more to everyone who was lucky enough to know him. Perhaps it was a Midwestern thing; maybe it was simply a Dave Lindberg thing. Regardless, it was his generous
character combined with his intellect that made him a truly outstanding scholar
and person.
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