James Voelkel
Curator of Rare Books
James R. Voelkel is a historian of early modern science. He is curator of rare books at the Othmer Library of Chemical History and resident scholar in the Beckman Center for the History of Chemistry at the Science History Institute. He is the author of The Composition of Kepler’s Astronomia nova (Princeton University Press, 2001) and the biography Johannes Kepler and the New Astronomy (Oxford University Press, 1999).
Voelkel has held postdoctoral fellowships at the Dibner Institute for the History of Science and Technology at MIT, Harvard University, and Johns Hopkins University. He is a longtime contributor and senior consultant to the Chymistry of Isaac Newton project. He also teaches the course “The Scientific Revolution” at the University of Pennsylvania. He previously curated the rare-book exhibitions The Alchemical Quest and Books of Secrets in the Institute’s Hach Gallery.
Voelkel holds degrees in astronomy and physics from Williams College and in history and philosophy of science from Cambridge University. He received his PhD in history of science from Indiana University.
More from James Voelkel
Of Mummies, Moss, and Magic
A conversation on the weapon salve, a sensational cure.
A Remote Idea
Healing at a distance: Our latest rare book exhibition explores the debate over the effectiveness of the weapon salve.
A Matter of Taste
This rare book exhibition examined distilling, café culture, and the science of flavor during the Enlightenment.
Blood and Fire
From our A Closer Read series, this exhibition featured rare books that tell the story of experimental science in the 17th century.
The Revolution in Astronomy, 1500–1650
In this four-part Roundtable course, James Voelkel will cover the period in astronomy surrounding Copernicus’s proposal that the earth revolves around the sun.