Invisible College

The Invisible College was a precursor to the Royal Society of United Kingdom. It consisted of a group of scientists including Robert Boyle, John Wilkins, John Wallis, John Evelyn, Robert Hooke, Christopher Wren and William Petty. In letters in 1646 and 1647, Boyle refers to "our invisible college" or "our philosophical college". The society's common theme was to acquire knowledge through experimental investigation. [http://www-history.mcs.st-and.ac.uk/Societies/RS.html]

17th century

The idea of an invisible college became influential in seventeenth century Europe, in particular, in the form of a network of savants or intellectuals exchanging ideas (by post, as it would have been understood at the time). This is an alternative model to that of the learned journal, dominant in the nineteenth century. The invisible college idea is exemplified by the network of astronomers, professors, mathematicians, and natural philosophers in 16th century Europe. Men such as Johannes Kepler, Georg Joachim Rheticus, John Dee and Tycho Brahe passed information and ideas to each other in an invisible college. One of the most common methods used to communicate was through marginalia, annotations written in personal copies of books that were loaned, given, or sold from person to person.

Contemporary use

The term now refers mainly to the free transfer of thought and technical expertise, usually carried out without the establishment of designated facilities or institutional authority, spread by a loosely connected system of word-of-mouth referral or localized bulletin-board system, and supported through barter (i.e. trade of knowledge or services) or apprenticeship. In earlier times the term also included certain Hegelian aspects of secret societies and occultism.

In the arts and humanities, a field of scholarly inquiry that virtually originated as an invisible college is the study of film history, most film historians for decades not being academics. One film society, the Society for the Preservation of Film Music, was started entirely by knowledgeable people outside academia.

The invisible college is akin to the old guild system, yet holds no sway in recognized scholastic, technical or political circles. It is merely an attempt to circumvent bureaucratic or monetary obstacles by knowledgeable individuals and civic groups. Said entities generally feel a need to share their methods with fellow journeymen, so to speak, and to strengthen local techniques through collaboration. Members of an invisible college are often today called independent scholars.

In short, the invisible college is a grassroots educational system.

The concept of invisible college was developed in the sociology of science by Diane Crane (1972) building on De Solla Price's work on citation networks. It is related, but significantly different, from other concepts of expert communities, such as 'Epistemic communities' (Haas, 1992) or Community of Practice (Wenger, 1998).

References

* Gingrich, Owen "The Book Nobody Read: Chasing the Revolutions of Nicolaus Copernicus". Penguin Books, 2004. Chap. 11: The Invisible College

* Bordwell, David "Making Meaning: Inference and Rhetoric in the Interpretation of Cinema". Harvard University Press, 1989, Chap. 2: Routines and Practices.

* Bordwell, David and Noël Carroll, eds. "Post-Theory: Reconstructing Film Studies". University of Wisconsin Press, 1996. Chap. 1: Contemporary Film Studies and the Vicissitudes of Grand Theory.

* Crane Diana (1972) 'Invisible colleges. Diffusion of knowledge in scientific communities.' The University of Chicago Press: Chicago and London.

ee also

*Autodidacticism
*Bard College Clemente Program
*Education in Poland during World War II, on underground universities
*Flying University
*Gresham College
*Royal Society
*Society for the Preservation of Film Music
*Unseen University