Collections and Collecting

Marta Lourenço (Museum of Science and Natural History of the University of Lisbon), "Engaging Storytelling: Reading Artefacts of Science"
 
The material culture of science – artefacts, collections, spaces, specimens – has been increasingly used as primary sources for the history of science, technology and medicine. However, due to tradition, past practices, object perceptions, and contingencies related to collecting, among others, scientific museums are often poorly prepared to document collections and respond to the demands of the "material turn" in history. In this workshop, I will explain why this is so important for contemporary museums – storytelling, diverse narratives about the past, "decolonization," etc. – and propose a simple and practical tool for documenting artefacts (the "Gessner Map"). Participants will be asked to engage with artefacts (despite the workshop being online).
 
Marta C. Lourenço is the present director of the Museum of Science and Natural History of the University of Lisbon (MUHNAC). She has background training in Physics (University of Lisbon), a MA in Museology (Nova, Lisbon) and a PhD in Museology and History of Technology (CNAM, Paris). She is the national coordinator of PRISC (Portuguese Research Infrastructure of Scientific Collections). She teaches Material Culture of Science in the Masters of History and Philosophy of Science (Faculty of Sciences, University of Lisbon) and is a research member of CIUHCT, the Interuniversity Research Centre for the History of Science and Technology (University of Lisbon).

Ally Fulton (University of California-Davis), “Stenographic Specimens in the Preservation of American Science”

Nuala Caomhanach (New York University), "From Unique to Ubiquitous: The Conflict of Endemism in Conservation Law"

Garrett Dash Nelson (Leventhal Map and Education Center, Boston Public Library) “More or Less in Common: Environmental Justice in the Urban Landscape”

Tad Brown (University of Cambridge), “Peanut Traces: Collecting Arachis from the Telegraph Line in Brazil”
 
"In this paper, I trace the enrolment a specific peanut, Arachis nambyquarae Hoehne, into scientific networks as a method for understanding how Brazil became known as the geographic origin of peanuts. The species was named after an Amerindian group in Matto Grosso as well as the scientist who published its first description. Botanists would later reclassify this peanut as a variety within domesticated Arachis. The taxonomic reversal offers support for the argument that the study of plant diversity includes ideas about human diversity."
 

Brooke Penaloza Patzak, FWF Schrödinger Fellow/ Visiting Scholar, University of Pennsylvania: “Geographic Provinces as a Doctrine and Framework for Scientific Collection and Display, 1860-1900"

Katherine Arnold, London School of Economics: "Interpreting the Collector's Logic: The Pursuit of Desiderata in Early Nineteenth-Century Southern Africa"
 

Andrea Marshall, Centre for Media and Celebrity Studies: "Zines as Nonbinary Objects and Questions of Privilege"

Katherine McLeod, New York University: "What to do about rats in the archive," from her dissertation, "How to Display a Hoatzin: Ecology, Eugenics, and Zoology in the Early 20th Century United States"

Maura C. Flannery, Professor Emerita, St. John's University, NY/Research Associate, A.C. Moore Herbarium, University of South Carolina, Columbia:  "Can Digital Collections Bridge the Gap between the Humanities and Science?"