Sofie
Lachapelle
History Department Faculty
Tri-University Graduate Program
Position / Title: 

Associate Professor and Graduate Coordinator

Phone: 
(519) 824-4120 ext. 53214
Email: 

slachap@uoguelph.ca

Room: 
2016 MacKinnon Extension
Education: 
  • Ph.D. University of Notre Dame, Indiana, 2002

  • B.Sc. Université de Montréal, Québec, 1995
Professional: 
  • University of Guelph, Department of History, 2005-

  • Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, postdoctoral fellow, 2002-04

  • Purdue University Calumet, visiting instructor, 2001-02
Research: 

Popular Science, Science and Entertainment, Science and Children, Aquariums, Modern France

Areas of Research for Graduate Supervision: 

History of Science
History of the Human Sciences
Modern France

In my present project, I explore the relationship of science, magic and entertainment in nineteenth and early twentieth-century France, focusing on the world of magicians and magic shows. I am writing a book-length manuscript titled Amusing Tricks and Wondrous Experiments: Science, Magic, and Entertainment in Modern France. I have also begun work on the history of aquariums and the transport of exotic fish to France. I am particularly interested in the tropical aquarium of the 1931 colonial exposition in Paris.

Publications: 

Investigating the Supernatural: From Spiritism and Occultism to Psychical Research and Metapsychics in France, 1853-1931.  Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011.

with Jenna Healey, "On Hans, Zou and the Others:  Wonder Animals and the Question of Animal Intelligence in Early Twentieth-Century France." Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological & Biomedical Sciences 41 (2010): 12-20.

“Science on Stage: Recreational Physics, White Magic, and Scientific Wonder at the Nineteenth-Century French Theatre.” History of Science 47, part 3, no. 157 (September 2009): 297-315.

“From the Stage to the Laboratory: Magicians, Psychologists, and the Science of Illusion.” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 44, no. 4 (Autumn 2008): 319-334.

"Educating Idiots: Utopian Ideals and Practical Organization Regarding Idiocy inside Nineteenth-Century French Asylums." Science in Context 20, no. 4 (December 2007): 627-648.

“Attempting Science: The Creation and Early Development of the Institut Métapsychique International in Paris, 1919–1931.” Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences 41, no. 1 (Winter 2005): 1-24.

“Between Miracle and Sickness: Louise Lateau and the Experience of Stigmata and Ecstasy.” Configurations 12 (2004): 77-105 .