Article ID: CBB727113832

Collections, Knowledge, and Time (2023)

unapi

In recent decades, an increasing interest in the dynamics of collections has brought to view how objects circulate as parts of networks of knowledge and how collections can acquire new meanings. Introducing this special issue on Collections, Knowledge, and Time, we want to shift focus from geographical circulation towards the temporal dynamics of collections: the layering and interweaving of asynchronous temporalities as collections are preserved, frozen, reinterpreted, sampled, and destroyed over time, and how these temporalities constitute knowledge potentials. We treat collections broadly across museums of history of medicine, history of science, and ethnography, and scientific institutions including biobanks, seed banks, and fly centres, to investigate the considerable overlap in collection practices, as well as how objects can move between cultural historical and scientific uses. We limit ourselves, however, to epistemic collections, mainly scientific ones, assembled with research as a main purpose. This introduction first explores apparently mundane collection practices such as preservation and care, as well as technologies such as freezers and boxes, to unravel them as temporal practices that make stored items transcendtime. We then discuss historical practices across cultural and scientific collections to show how historical thinking plays a central part in scientific collection work and how new scientific methods shape investigations of the past. Finally, we outline the potentialities for future knowledge in collections. In conclusion, we sketch out a pluralist epistemology of collections focusing specifically on how the dynamics of time create multiple epistemic potentials for historical scholarship and scientific research in the present and future.

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Includes Series Articles

Article Ken Arnold (2023) Redeeming the Past, Present, and Future. Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology (pp. 417-425). unapi

Article Martin Grünfeld; Adam Bencard; Louise Whiteley (2023) From Mausoleum to Living Room. Practicing Metabolic Carpentry in the Museum. Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology (pp. 387-416). unapi

Article Tiziana N. Beltrame (2023) A Matter of Dust, Powdery Fragments, and Insects. Object Temporalities Grounded in Social and Material Museum Life. Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology (pp. 365-385). unapi

Article Xan Sarah Chacko; Jenny Bangham (2023) Lively Stasis. Care and Routine in Living Collections of Flies and Seeds. Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology (pp. 337-363). unapi

Article Karin Tybjerg (2023) Medical Anamnesis. Collecting and Recollecting the Past in Medicine. Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology (pp. 235-259). unapi

Article Boris Jardine; Joshua Nall (2023) The Lab in the Museum. Or, Using New Scientific Instruments to Look at Old Scientific Instruments. Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology (pp. 261-289). unapi

Article Adrian Van Allen (2023) Entangled Timelines. Crafting Types of Time Through Making Museum Specimens. Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology (pp. 291-312). unapi

Article Frédéric Keck (2023) Filling China’s Gaps. Viral Banks and Bird Collections as Museums for Pandemics. Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology (pp. 313-335). unapi

Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB727113832/

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Authors & Contributors
Dibley, Ben
Longair, Sarah
McAleer, John
Arnold, Ken
Bencard, Adam
Bennett, Tony
Journals
Centaurus: International Magazine of the History of Mathematics, Science, and Technology
History and Anthropology
Archives of Natural History
Earth Sciences History: Journal of the History of the Earth Sciences Society
HOST: Journal of History of Science and Technology
Icon: Journal of the International Committee for the History of Technology
Publishers
Manchester University Press
Springer
UCL Press
Éditions Favre
Concepts
Museums
Collections
Collectors and collecting
Science and culture
Colonialism
Natural history
People
Baines, Thomas
Gould, John
McCulloch, Thomas
Skinner, Henry Devenish
Monticelli, Teodoro
Time Periods
19th century
20th century, early
18th century
20th century
21st century
Places
Africa
Great Britain
Geneva (Switzerland)
Australia
China
Germany
Institutions
Museum Boerhaave (Leiden)
Dalhousie University
Museum of Victoria (Melbourne, Australia)
Muséum d'histoire naturelle de Genève
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