How To Be a Politically Active Scientist in Nineteenth-Century Germany: The Case of Matthias Schleiden

This talk will address a dilemma repeatedly faced by modern Western scientists: how to navigate between the commitment to the search for truth—typically coded as “value-free”—and value-laden actions considered “political.” Nyharts approach here is not to focus on social-constructionist questions about commitments silently embedded in science, but rather to ask: in a time of intense political tumult, what options did scientists feeling an urgent call to civic action think were possible? Could scientific work be combined with political goals in the same career, and if so, how? What underlying norms and values are revealed to historians through an attempt to answer these questions? What are their implications? 

Nyhart will explore these questions by analyzing the activities of the botanist Matthias Schleiden during and after the revolutions of 1848-49, when the German-speaking states, like all of Europe, roiled with political uncertainty and violence. Schleiden is famous as a leading pioneer of cell theory; his political commitments have barely been explored. Nevertheless, his actions during and after 1848—seeking political office; leading a movement toward collective reform of German universities; applying botanical knowledge toward practical ends; and writing and speaking to a “general public”—reveal some of the possibilities for creating political and social change that scientists thought they could enact during this era. Schleiden’s case thus provides an avenue into understanding the very different conditions surrounding “science and politics” than those we face today, while also showing continuities with the present dilemmas of academics seeking to contribute to political change.  

Lynn K. Nyhart is Professor Emerita in the History Department at the University of Wisconsin—Madison. Before her retirement in 2023, she was WARF Robert E. Kohler Professor of History of Science. The winner of numerous fellowships and awards, including a Guggenheim, and in 2026, the Sarton Medal of the History of Science Society, she is the author of two monographs, Biology Takes Form: Animal Morphology and the German Universities (1995), and Modern Nature: The Rise of the Biological Perspective in Germany (2009); three co-edited volumes; and many articles and book chapters. She is currently working on a book project, from which this talk derives, that examines how a handful of leading German biologists responded to the political crises around 1848, in order to reveal the underlying values and conditions of being an academic life scientist in the middle decades of the nineteenth century.