Edward Halley Barnet

After graduating with a B.A. in history and French literature at the University of Alberta in 2009, I decided to move to France, one of the prime objects of my historical passion. I soon found my way to one of the many modern fragmentations of that great medieval university, the Sorbonne, where I unofficially attended classes at the Institut d'Histoire de la Révolution française for one year. Expanding my knowledge of the labyrinthine networks of French post-secondary education, in 2011 I began a two-years masters in history at Sciences Po. During my second year, through the good council of my thesis advisor, Stéphane Van Damme, I discovered the wealth of intellectual endeavours that is the history of science. In particular, I wrote my masters thesis on the Paris Academy of Sciences during the French Revolution, and its struggles to maintain its institutional status amidst the chaos of political upheaval. Here at Stanford, I am looking forward to expand my research interests beyond the bounds of l'hexagone; in general, I am fascinated by phenomena of knowledge creation, and how issues of epistemology intersect with broader, and narrower, social, political and cultural concerns. I have recently begun to explore the evolution of speculative music within natural philosophy, and I am excited to pursue this line of research in the future.

Of course, my time is not entirely devoted to reading and writing! Outside of school, my greatest passions are cooking, music (I play gypsy jazz) and cycling