Gallery Talk: Philosophy Chamber Conversations— Electrical Machines, Mechanical Orreries, and the Atom Bomb

James Delbourgo, associate professor of the history of science and the Atlantic World at Rutgers University, will give today’s gallery talk with Ethan Lasser, head of the Division of European and American Art and the Theodore E. Stebbins Jr. Curator of American Art. The Philosophy Chamber: Art and Science in Harvard’s Teaching Cabinet, 1766–1820 is on view through December 31, 2017.

Free with museums admission. This talk is limited to 15 people and tickets are required. Ten minutes before the talk, tickets will become available at the admissions desk.

Please meet in the Calderwood Courtyard, in front of the digital screens between the shop and the admissions desk. Museums staff will be on hand to collect tickets.

Gallery talks are offered by curators, conservators, fellows, and other museums staff; they focus on aspects of the installation process, exploring both intellectual and more practical considerations. Museums staff will, for example, tease out arguments at play in the galleries, discuss conservation treatments, look closely at specific collections, or draw connections between works of art throughout the museums.