{"id":513,"date":"2014-01-28T17:28:33","date_gmt":"2014-01-28T17:28:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/researchbdev.wpengine.com\/a-world-of-objects\/?p=513"},"modified":"2014-02-04T23:00:39","modified_gmt":"2014-02-04T23:00:39","slug":"science-before-science-courses-visit-the-object-show","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/a-world-of-objects\/science-before-science-courses-visit-the-object-show\/","title":{"rendered":"Science Before Science courses visit The Object Show"},"content":{"rendered":"

On an icy cold Monday afternoon, while the Museum of Art was closed to the public, over fifty students from four courses from the Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS) program<\/a> visited\u00a0The Object Show: Discoveries in Bowdoin Collections<\/i>.\u00a0<\/i>\u00a0While taught separately, these courses, all part of the Science Before Science<\/em> cluster, treat themes in the history of science and explore the “ways that people thought about the natural and supernatural world before the emergence of modern disciplines of scientific inquiry.” For this museum visit, students from\u00a0Associate Professor of History Dallas Denery\u2019s\u00a0On the Origins of Modernity,\u00a0<\/i>Assistant Professor of History and Asian Studies Leah Zuo\u2019s\u00a0Science, Technology, and Society in China,\u00a0<\/i>Postdoctoral Fellow in the Humanities Crystal Hall\u2019s\u00a0The Rhetoric of Big Data: Copernicus to Climate Change,\u00a0<\/i>and\u00a0<\/i>Associate Professor of English Aaron Kitch\u2019s\u00a0The Arts of Science in the English Renaissance<\/i>\u00a0gathered together for the first (and perhaps only) time this semester. Channeling the interdisciplinary spirit of the Mellon Humanities Clusters, it was particularly gratifying to offer the Museum of Art as a space for students from disparate yet linked courses to meet one another and exchange ideas.<\/p>\n

\"Professor<\/a>

Professor Kitch with students in The Object Show<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n

Curator Joachim Homann and I offered an introductory tour, discussing how\u00a0The Object Show<\/i> deliberately upends typical modes of display and classification. In this exhibition, objects are grouped together around broad themes like conflict, exchange, adornment, and afterlives, rather than shown in strict linear chronologies or by shared geographical region or culture. The results are often unexpected, playful, and deliberately encourage open-ended interpretation, as seen in the display of a shark tooth sword from the Gilbert Islands of the Pacific Ocean \u00a0shown alongside James Bowdoin III\u2019s dueling pistols.<\/p>\n

\"Shark<\/a><\/p>\n

We discussed certain ironies embedded in objects, such as the Memento Mori Prayer Bead (1500-1550). This intricately carved Janus-face head displays a rotting face of a corpse on one side, and a skull covered with reptiles and insects on the other. The bead, originally part of a rosary, would have been held during one’s intense prayer for salvation, encouraging piety over material pursuits. Despite its message of humility, the bead is made from a precious material – ivory –\u00a0and is impeccably carved, suggesting its significant monetary value. With the students, we wondered why is it that luxury items such as this are the very devices through which one renounces the material world.<\/p>\n

\"2011.26.sidedup\"<\/a>

German\/Netherlandish
Memento Mori Prayer Bead, 1500\u20131550
ivory
Gift of Linda and David Roth in memory of David P. Becker
2011.26<\/p><\/div>\n

Students were then given an assignment based on\u00a0The Object Show<\/i> to further explore\u00a0how we categorize, classify and assign meaning to objects, from the rare to the quotidian.\u00a0For instance, students in Professor Denery\u2019s On the Origins of Modernity <\/i>course were asked to read Paula Findlen\u2019s essay that explores ways Renaissance scientists and collectors attempted to make sense of their world and the eclectic objects they collected. Students selected two to three pieces in The Object Show<\/i> and related them to one of the categories established by Renaissance humanists, such as the natural, the artificial, the joke of nature, irregular regularity, or the marvelous. Student could also invent their own categories or use familiar systems to link select pieces on view.\u00a0In an upcoming post, I will share some of the student\u2019s responses.<\/p>\n

Sarah J. Montross, Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Curatorial Fellow<\/p>\n

Recommended further reading:<\/p>\n

Findlen, Paula. \u201cJokes of Nature and Jokes of Knowledge: The Playfulness of Scientific Discourse in Early Modern Europe.\u201d\u00a0Renaissance Quarterly\u00a0<\/i>43.2 (1990): 292-331.<\/p>\n

\"Associate<\/a>

Associate Professor of History Dallas Denery with students from “On the Origins of Modernity”<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Students<\/a>

Students discuss a display of swords in The Object Show<\/p><\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On an icy cold Monday afternoon, while the Museum of Art was closed to the public, over fifty students from four courses from the Medieval and Early Modern Studies (MEMS) program visited\u00a0The Object Show: Discoveries in Bowdoin Collections.\u00a0\u00a0While taught separately, these courses, all part of the Science Before Science cluster, treat themes in the history […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34,33],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-513","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-education","7":"category-events","8":"entry","9":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/a-world-of-objects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/a-world-of-objects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/a-world-of-objects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/a-world-of-objects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/a-world-of-objects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/a-world-of-objects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/a-world-of-objects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/a-world-of-objects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/research.bowdoin.edu\/a-world-of-objects\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}