Biographies of Scientific Objects

Biographies of Scientific Objects PDF Author: Lorraine Daston
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226136721
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
Looks at how whole domains of phenomena come into being and sometimes pass away as objects of scientific study. With examples from the natural and social sciences, ranging from the 16th to the 20th centuries, this book explores the ways in which scientific objects are both real and historical.

Biographies of Scientific Objects

Biographies of Scientific Objects PDF Author: Lorraine Daston
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 9780226136721
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 324

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Book Description
Looks at how whole domains of phenomena come into being and sometimes pass away as objects of scientific study. With examples from the natural and social sciences, ranging from the 16th to the 20th centuries, this book explores the ways in which scientific objects are both real and historical.

Object Biographies

Object Biographies PDF Author: Menil Collection (Houston, Tex.)
Publisher: Menil Foundation
ISBN: 9780300250879
Category : Art, Ancient
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
A revealing look at ancient art in the Menil Collection that addresses the problem of objects lacking archaeological context This innovative anthology discusses a diversity of ancient Mediterranean objects--a Mesopotamian votive figure, a Egyptian relief from the New Kingdom, and a Greek Geometric fawn among them--in the Menil Collection and three other US museums. It offers new models for understanding works from antiquity that lack archaeological context. Essays by 13 authors written with the layperson in mind employ a creative mixture of iconography, technical studies, and modern provenance research to gain insight into the meaning of the objects themselves and what they can teach us more broadly aboutarchaeology, art history, and collecting practices. They take on complex issues of cultural heritage, legality, and taste to bring to life works that are often consigned to either the imperial past or a conceptual limbo. Essays on related groups or single objects introduce fresh frameworks to engage with the multilayered history these objects represent. The eight object biographies on ancient artifacts in the Menil are the first in-depth studies published on the collection. Essays by seven university professors probe works in their areas of expertise, while those by seven curators lay bare one object biography; frame provenance studies at the San Antonio Museum of Art, Getty Museum, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and survey war's effect on ancient works. The editors' introduction and an epilogue responding to the other 13 texts review theoretical and practical issues in the study of artifacts lacking archaeological findspots (provenience). Recommended for programs and libraries in museum studies, archaeology, and art history; art and heritage law programs; and readers fascinated by cold-case detective work on the material culture of the ancient Mediterranean. Distributed for the Menil Collection

Object Worlds in Ancient Egypt

Object Worlds in Ancient Egypt PDF Author: Lynn Meskell
Publisher: Berg Publishers
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 280

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Book Description
From the Valley of the Kings to Las Vegas, Egypt looms large in the Western imagination. So why are we intrigued by pyramids and practices of mummification? Is it because the ancient Egyptians fetishized material objects? And what do Egyptian remains tell us about biography, embodiment, memory, materiality, the self, and, indeed, ourselves? This book considers how excavated objects reveal ancient Egyptians' experiences of their material world. It also explores existential questions that not only preoccupied ancient Egyptians, but continue to fascinate people today. What is the essence of persons and things? How might we understand the situated experiences of material life? How might objects successfully mediate between worlds? Meskell ultimately moves forward through time and examines the consumption of Egyptian material objects in the contemporary world, including Las Vegas. Meskell provides an elegant analysis of the aesthetics of ancient Egyptian material culture and insights into its mysteries, including our own ongoing fascination.

Museums and Biographies

Museums and Biographies PDF Author: Kate Hill
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 184383961X
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 351

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Book Description
Exploring the relationship between museums and biographies, this collection of essays examines examples from the early 19th century to the present day.

Lineages and Advancements in Material Culture Studies

Lineages and Advancements in Material Culture Studies PDF Author: Timothy Carroll
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000182630
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 439

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Book Description
This volume comprises a curated conversation between members of the Material Culture Section of University College London Anthropology. In laying out the state of play in the field, it challenges how the anthropology of material culture is being done and argues for new directions of enquiry and new methods of investigation. The contributors consider the ramifications of specific research methods and explore new methodological frameworks to address areas of human experience that require a new analytical approach. The case studies draw from a range of contexts, including digital objects, infrastructure, data, extraterrestriality, ethnographic curation, and medical materiality. They include timely reappraisals of now-classical analytical models that have shaped the way we understand the object, the discipline, knowledge formation, and the artefact.

An Extraordinary Theory of Objects

An Extraordinary Theory of Objects PDF Author: Stephanie LaCava
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 0062223666
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 147

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Book Description
A haunting and moving collection of original narratives that reveals an expatriate's coming-of-age in Paris and the magic she finds in ordinary objects An awkward, curious girl growing up in a foreign country, Stephanie LaCava finds solace and security in strange yet beautiful objects. When her father's mysterious job transports her and her family to the quaint Parisian suburb of Le Vésinet, everything changes for the young American. Stephanie sets out to explore her new surroundings and to make friends at her unconventional international school, but her curiosity soon gives way to feelings of anxiety and a deep depression. In her darkest moments, Stephanie learns to filter the world through her peculiar lens, discovering the uncommon, uncelebrated beauty in what she finds. Encouraged by her father through trips to museums and scavenger hunts at antique shows, she traces an interconnected web of narratives of long-ago outsiders, and of objects historical and natural, that ultimately help her survive. A series of illustrated essays that unfolds in cinematic fashion, An Extraordinary Theory of Objects offers a universal lesson—to harness the power of creativity to cope with loneliness, sadness, and disappointment to find wonder in the uncertainty of the future.

The Biography of the Object in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy

The Biography of the Object in Late Medieval and Renaissance Italy PDF Author: Roberta J. M. Olson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description


Biographies in the History of Physics

Biographies in the History of Physics PDF Author: Christian Forstner
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030485099
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 316

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Book Description
This book sheds new light on the biographical approach in the history of physics by including the biographies of scientific objects, institutions, and concepts. What is a biography? Can biographies also be written for non-human subjects like scientific instruments, institutions or concepts? The respective chapters of this book discuss these controversial questions using examples from the history of physics. By approaching biography as metaphor, it transcends the boundaries between various perspectives on the history of physics, and enriches our grasp of the past.

A History of the World in 100 Objects

A History of the World in 100 Objects PDF Author: Neil MacGregor
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141966831
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 564

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Book Description
This book takes a dramatically original approach to the history of humanity, using objects which previous civilisations have left behind them, often accidentally, as prisms through which we can explore past worlds and the lives of the men and women who lived in them. The book's range is enormous. It begins with one of the earliest surviving objects made by human hands, a chopping tool from the Olduvai gorge in Africa, and ends with an object from the 21st century which represents the world we live in today. Neil MacGregor's aim is not simply to describe these remarkable things, but to show us their significance - how a stone pillar tells us about a great Indian emperor preaching tolerance to his people, how Spanish pieces of eight tell us about the beginning of a global currency or how an early Victorian tea-set tells us about the impact of empire. Each chapter immerses the reader in a past civilisation accompanied by an exceptionally well-informed guide. Seen through this lens, history is a kaleidoscope - shifting, interconnected, constantly surprising, and shaping our world today in ways that most of us have never imagined. An intellectual and visual feast, it is one of the most engrossing and unusual history books published in years.

Biographies & Space

Biographies & Space PDF Author: Dana Arnold
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1134215355
Category : Architecture
Languages : en
Pages : 237

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Book Description
Bringing together a collection of high-profile authors, Biographies and Space presents essays exploring the relationship between biography and space and how specific subjects are used as a means of explaining sets of social, cultural and spatial relationships. Biographical methods of historical investigation can bring out the authentic voice of subjects, revealing personal meanings and strategies in space as well as providing a means to analyze relations between the personal and the social. Writing about both actual (architectural) and imagined (pictorial) space, the authors consider issues of gender, childhood, sexuality and race, highlighting an increasing fluidity and interaction between theory, methods and history. Biographies and Space is an original and exciting new book, with direct relevance to both architectural and art history.