Biomedicine in museums

The material dimension of science is back in focus for historians.  As far back as I remember, it was historians of technology who were the ‘materialists’, whereas historians of science were ‘idealists’. Didn’t really matter what kind of studies they did — historians of science have always tended to be intererested in mind (theories, ideas, concepts, discourses, etc.), whereas historians of technology have given higher priority to matter — material matter, not just conceptualised matter.

But historians of science are about to discover the material aspects of science. Next summer’s workshop ‘Scientific Objects and their Materiality in the History of Chemistry’ is a case in point. Organised by Michael Gordin (Princeton), Ursula Klein( Berlin), and Carsten Reinhardt (Bielefeld) and held at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin, 24-26 June 2010, it will explore the materiality of scientific objects with a focus on the history of chemistry:

For both experimental inquiry and technical application, the sciences depend on working with material things and processes. In this respect, chemistry is arguably the material science par excellence, primarily through the crucial role of the synthesis of chemical compounds, and the strong interactions with technological institutions and industry. In terms of the representation of its objects of inquiry, chemistry has a peculiarly materialized semiology in a long-standing tradition of graphic formulae and three-dimensional structural models, as well as a rich heritage of ordering systems such as the periodic table. In the middle-ground between representation and intervention there stand certain kinds of principles and entities, some of them invisible, that are both objects of experimental inquiry and theoretical speculation. Concepts such as the atom, element, or phlogiston have laid the groundwork for chemical research in defining the units of ordering systems, constituting the goals for material production, serving as limitations to the extent of chemical practice, or having crucial heuristic roles. And all of them have experienced variation, re-definition, development, suppression, and sometimes even extinction in the course of history.

And they tacitly refer to the notion of ‘mangling of practice’:

Commonly, the materiality of scientific objects has been described by two, arguably conflicting, dimensions: First, by studies of materially-intervening practice—the ways in which ‘real things’ are involved in and condition such practice. Second, by the significance and meaning ascribed to things in discursive practice. These two dimensions are not necessarily in contradiction, and their tension can be used in productive and innovative ways.

I hardly need to emphasise how important this kind of inqury is for museums of science, technology and medicine, because materiality is at the center of the museum enterprise.

 The following concepts/objects are indicative of the organisers’ intentions:
• earth, air, water, fire, ether
• sal, mercur, sulfur
• phlogiston, caloric, oxygen, lumière
• element, compound, composition, mixture, alloy
• electron, atom, bond, molecule, structure
• polymer, colloid, crystal, glass
• salt, base, acid
• metal, halogen, rare earth
• gas, liquid, solid, plasma
• natural product, synthetic product
• supramolecular, nano
• pure, impure
• chemical reaction

The workshop will consist of ca. 15 precirculated papers. The want max 350 words proposals by 1 December, 2009. Write to Carsten Reinhardt: carsten.reinhardt@uni-bielefeld.de.

It’s difficult now to imagine how once, in a culture long ago, there were no cells or tissues, no molecules or receptors, no hormones, proteins or DNA. Just a body, with organs, sinuses, cavities, limbs, and fluids of different kinds.

This pre-cellular, pre-molecular body will be the object of discussion at a symposium titled ‘The Body on Display, from Renaissance to Enlightenment’ at Durham University, 6-7 July 2010:

At once an organ system, disciplinary target, metaphor, creation of God, cultural construction, ‘self’ and receptacle for the soul, it is not surprising that the body has fallen under the attention of historians of art, gender, thought, medicine, theatre and costume, and of literary scholars, archaeologists and historical sociologists and philosophers. This symposium will look at the human and human-like body on, and as, display, between c.1400 and c.1800. We will explore the notion, and reality, of the exposure of the inner and outer human form, and the representational, visual and material cultures of the body. This was a formative (and even transformative) period for the visual and representational culture of human corporeality, witnessing the watersheds of Renaissance and Enlightenment, challenges to long-held understandings of the body and, allegedly, both the creation of the modern ‘self’ and the eventual secularization of Western society.

And topics might include, e.g.:
-Dissection, the medical ‘gaze’ and medical illustration
-Corporeality and the flesh in the visual, written and performing arts
-The body in religious iconography, hagiography and religious
performance
-Gesture, kinesics and the expression of emotions
-Corporal punishment and bodily shaming
-Clothing, garments and cosmetics and their significance

300 word abstract to body.ondisplay@durham.ac.uk before 30 January 2010. Read more here: www.bodyondisplay.org.uk

The other day, I lamented the fact that any new idea I developed about museums apparently was preempted by Nina Simon (or so it felt when I read she had already suggested the notion of the ‘slow museum’).  I felt like Professor Otto Lidenbrock who exclaimed “Arne Saknussem, always Arne Saknussem”, every time he succeeded to reach a new outpost on his way through the underworld and found that the Icelandic medieval alchemist had already been there (in my favourite Jules Verne novel A Journey to the Centre of the Earth; now in a new translation with a scholarly introduction by Jane Smiley).

Well, my Lidenbrockian feeling of beeing scooped has now shifted object of transference, from Nina Simon to Jim Bennett at the Museum of the History of Science in Oxford, who has just opened, of all things, an art exhibition on steampunk.

Well? Didn’t we have a discussion about steampunk in museums on this blog in early September? And now Jim opens an exhibition about it!?  “Parallel trajectories, as usual”, Jim replies when confronted with this remarkable coincidence.

But of course he’s right — and generous, since we all know that exhibitions take months, sometimes years to prepare. So Jim and his colleagues were there long before us. Jim Bennett, always Jim Bennett.

Anyway, the new exhibit at the Museum of History of Science in Oxford is titled “STEAMPUNK — the first museum exhibition of steampunk art”. It opened Tuesday and will run until 21 February, 2010. See further: www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/steampunk,  www.steampunkmuseumexhibition.blogspot.com, and www.mhs.ox.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/broadsheet9.pdf

Can’t wait to see it.

BioSystems — the blog of a new venture-capital supported biotech upstart Plectix that specializes in representing cellular signalling — reinforces my impression over the last couple of years that privately employed scientists too can use the blog medium to say increasingly interesting things about what used to be the turf of public university scholars in the social sciences and humanities (‘science studies‘ and ‘philosophy of science‘). For example, last December, Isha Antani addressed the perennial problem of the trade-off between competition and co-operation among life scintists.

I’m currently on paternal leave with 1-year old Johanna — which means that my blogging activities are structured after her sleeping schedule. And to save time we share lunch table and working desk:

Last Friday, Medical Museion participated, as usual, in the annual Copenhagen Night of Culture. We had 1326 visitors — a little fewer than last year — passing through the entrance door to view our permanent and temporary exhibitions. The decrease in the number of visitors is not a bad thing though — because it gave us better time to speak with them as individuals. Below are a few images from Friday night (taken from Bente’s post in Danish on Museionblog, therefore the Danish captions):

In the last two years, the Office of History at the National Institutes of Health has grown and changed into one of the major players in studies of contemporary history of biomedicine. In 2007 the Office got a new director, Robert Martensen who has a combined medical and historical background; last year, historian of 20th century cancer research, David Cantor, was recruited as Deputy Director and Senior Research Historian; and not long time ago they launched a new website (pretty NIH’ish look, but fills the necessary informative function well).

Martensen and Cantor are also expanding the postdoc programme. Currently, seven postdocs are associated with the Office — Eric Boyle (history of alternative and complementary medicine at NIH); Todd Olszewski (history of risk factors in terms of cholesterol and cardiovascular health); Laura Stark (history of NIH policies in ethics of human subject research); Doogab Yi (history of NIH research in cancer viruses); Chin Jou (history of obesity); Brian Casey (NIH, neurophysiology, and criminal culpability); Sharon Ku (nanotechnology and cancer).

And now they looking for #8, with a nicely vague mandate:

The Fellow will conduct research on topics of their choice under the supervision of senior staff of the Office of NIH History and assisted by contacts in the relevant Institute(s). The Fellow will be expected to participate in historical activities on campus, including presentation of one or more seminars and lectures.

Deadline 31. december — more info here.

… hvordan skal det fortolkes:

(fra http://www.aharef.info/static/htmlgraph/)

The four-year ‘Biomedicine on Display’ project, funded by the Novo Nordisk Foundation, is closing down this autumn. Most of the junior staff have left for other jobs. The external steering group has approved the evaluation report (with acclamation). Here’s an updated publication list from the project.

For dem der ikke hørte det — vores egen Jesper Vaczy Kragh var i ‘Sundhed på P1’ igår og talte om det hvide snit. Læs og lyt her.