Making Waves: Oliver Lodge and the Cultures of Science, 1875-1940

Interdisciplinarity, particularly between the arts and the sciences, is notoriosly difficult to achieve. This project takes one particular historical case study in order to understand disciplinary difference at a crucial moment in the past. Oliver Lodge (1851-1940) was a key figure in late nineteenth and early twentieth-century culture. Today, however, he remains relatively neglected, largely because of the apparent contradictions between different aspects of his career. This research network uses these contradictions as a starting point to consider the role of the disciplines in shaping knowledge. Taking Lodge as a case study allows us to understand the place of science in his period and to learn how disciplinary boundaries continue to structure research and knowledge today.

Lodge has much to teach us about the place of science in culture because, in his life and career, he transcended many of the boundaries we imagine structure the cultural status of science. A pioneer of wireless telegraphy, Lodge was an internationally-acclaimed physicist and engineer, equally at home in laboratory and workshop. Alongside his commercial interests Lodge carved out a career in the new Victorian universities, becoming the first professor of physics at the University of Liverpool and then Principal of the University of Birmingham after its move to Edgbaston. Not only did Lodge help science consolidate its place at the heart of the university, but he also saw the institutionalisation of the differences between scientific disciplines. A prolific writer, speaker and, later in his life, broadcaster, Lodge was widely known as a populariser of science and commentator on current affairs. Yet in the latter part of his life, Lodge became a famous spiritualist, carrying out psychical investigations alongside his scientific research and publishing a besteller, Raymond (1916), detailing encounters with his son killed in the trenches. Focusing on Lodge can help us understand the differences between science and the arts and humanities; the place of faith and the imagination in scientific practice; and the role of the arts and humanities in popularising science.

To understand a career such as Lodge's, it is necessary to take an interdsciplinary approach. The project is designed to bring together a range of scholars, archivists and museum professionals at four workshops, each focusing on a particular aspect of Lodge's career. The first will consider the place of science in the new Victorian universities; the second the many ways that signalling though space was understood in the period; the third Lodge's physics and engineering and the supposed differences between pure and applied science; the fourth scientific lives more generally, investigating different tools and methodological approaches for the study of historical scientific figures. The project will maintain a blog, enabling conversation to continue between workshops and extend the network beyond the immediate participants; it will include a public demonstration of Victorian popular science, exploring the way in which scientific ideas were communicated in the past; lastly, it will publish an edited collection, producing the first scholarly book on Lodge to bring together the various aspects of his life and career.

In 1913 Lodge gave the Presidential Address at the British Association for the Advancement of Science at Birmingham. Lodge's talk was on the continuity of the physical universe in the face of relativity, but Lodge - physicist and engineer; scientist and spiritualist; entrepreneur and civic leader - was himself an exemplary demonstration of continuity. A century later, this research network will reappraise Lodge's career, tracing the connections that structured scientific practice over Lodge's lifetime and so learning how the disciplines might be restructured today.

The project is designed to reach partners beyond the academy while also engaging the wider public. It will have impact on the following groups:

Museum professionals. John Liffen, Curator of Communications at the Science Museum, will be part of the advisory board and participate in the workshops. The impact on heritage professionals will be in the form of knowledge exchange between the staff of the Museum and scholars from all the disciplines involved in the project. The project will lead to increased use of the Museum's collections, this research adding value to the services the Museum porvides. Working with the project will impact on the Museum's interpretation strategy, particularly with regards to the new communication galleries opening in 2014 which feature Lodge. Therefore, the project will ultimately have an impact on the Science Museum's visitors (currently around 3 million a year).

Archivists. The impact on archivists will also be in the form of knowledge exchange between archivists and scholars from various disciplines. Archivists at the Universities of Birmingham and Liverpool will be involved in their respective workshops, allowing them to benefit from the expertise of scholars who will in turn benefit from improved knowledge of collections. The project will also include archivists from the Institute of Engineering and Technology. Participation in the Lodge project will help archivists consider Lodge's relevance, and ways in which collections might be used in their outreach activity, by scholars, and the wider public.

Public lectures. Public lectures are planned in Liverpool and Birmingham, the two universities with which Lodge was connected, so that the project can have a direct impact on members of the public. The lectures will highlight Lodge's role in the history of each city, and place his scientific achievement in the context of his civic life. Each lecture will help the wider public engage with the key argument of the project, using Lodge to understand the place of science in culture.

Exhibition. The Cadbury Research Library at the University of Birmingham will curate and host an exhibition on Lodge, drawing on the University's archival material and its collection of historical physics instruments. This activity will lead to knowledge exchange between archivists and scholars and will raise the profile of the University's collections amongst visitors. Although the exhibition will be installed on campus, it will be promoted as part of the University's programme of knowledge exchange.

Popularisation project. Lodge was an important populariser of science. This project will stage a recreation of a Victorian electrical demonstration. The impact on the audience will be fourfold: it will engage them with questions about the role of science in the imagined futures of the Victorians; it will encourage them to reflect on whether those futures came to pass; it will make them consider the roles of science and technology in creating our own futures; and lastly, it will alert them to the ways science is communicated, both in the present and the past. It will also have an impact through the science that it communicates to the audience. Participants will consider the value of recreations and performance as a means of communicating science.

Blog. This will have an impact on the public by providing an accessible commentary on the project. It will be fully embedded within social media, extending the reach of the project beyond the academy. The blog will be edited with a broad audience in mind, contextualising workshop material accordingly. The blog will link the project to previous work on Lodge, especially the previous conference in 1994. By publishing video of this conference (there were talks by Lodge's grandsons), the impact of this earlier activity can be extended while providing an immediate context for the current Lodge project.