Article ID: CBB000830018

The Leopard in the Garden: Life in Close Quarters at the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle (2007)

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Burckhardt, Richard W., Jr. (Author)


Isis: International Review Devoted to the History of Science and Its Cultural Influences
Volume: 98
Pages: 675--694


Publication Date: 2007
Edition Details: History of Science Society Distinguished Lecture
Language: English

French naturalists at the Muse'um Nationale d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris in the early nineteenth century recognized that their individual and collective successes were intimately linked to questions of power over specimens. France's strength abroad affected the growth of the museum's collections. At the museum, preserving, naming, classifying, displaying, interpreting, and otherwise deploying specimens went hand in hand with promoting scientific theories, advancing scientific careers, and instructing the public. The control of specimens, both literally and figuratively, was the museum's ongoing concern. The leopard in this essay's title, a live specimen confiscated from the streets of Paris in 1793, serves here to represent the tensions created in an existing order of things by the introduction of a potentially disruptive agent. The essay explores the life of the museum and the interrelations among its naturalists, the special challenges created by the establishment of a menagerie, and the histories of particular specimens and ideas. LECTURING

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Description “Explores the life of the museum and the interrelations among its naturalists.” (from the abstract)


Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB000830018/

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Authors & Contributors
Daszkiewicz, Piotr
Yamina Bettahar
Lunde, Darrin
Lesser, Thomas A.
Davey, Colin
Roosevelt, Kermit, III
Concepts
Museums
Natural history
Naturalists
Societies; institutions; academies
Professions and professionalization
Biology
Time Periods
19th century
20th century
20th century, early
18th century
Places
France
United States
Great Britain
Germany
England
Edinburgh
Institutions
Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, Paris
Musée académique de Genève
American Museum of Natural History
Tufts University
United States. Bureau of Biological Survey
Institut de France, Paris
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