Episode 6 (with John Tresch)

Dr. John Tresch, Mellon Chair and Professor of History of Art, Science, and Folk Practice at the Warburg Institute, joins me in an exciting conversation focused on The Reason for the Darkness in the Night: Edgar Allan Poe and the Forging of American Science (Straus and Giroux, 2021). We discuss the origins of the project and its unexpected track to becoming a biography (1:42), Poe’s early life and immersion in science (8:27), “Sonnet to Science” (13:22), “The Tell-Tale Heart” (18:28), the intersections between Poe and Alexander Dallas Bache and Joseph Henry (24:32), the parallel tracks that Poe and those men pursued in an attempt to institutionalize their fields (33:42), and Eureka (42:40). We close by talking about the upcoming special issue in Poe Studies focused on science, for which he wrote the introduction (52:59). The conversation is full of surprises and ideas that can inspire new perspectives and investigations for Poe studies!