Nomadic,ecstatic, magic: Arctic primitivism in Scandinavia around 1900

The aim of this article is to delineate the term “Arctic primitivism” in an aesthetic context and, by means of three examples from Scandinavian artists whose works were also the subject of ethnological discussions, to give an illuminating impression of Scandinavian Arctic primitivism around 1900. First some conceptual considerations about the combination of Arctic and primitivistic discourse will be presented. Then three examples for the “primal conditions” of an aesthetic conception of Arctic primitivism will be discussed: the nomadic, the ecstatic, and the magical. They serve as counter principles to modern categories such as spatial fixedness, linear chronology, and rational thought. Emilie Demant Hatt’s visual art stands for the nomadic principle; the Swedish cartoonist Ossian Elgström deals with ecstatic states; and the poems of Danish “eskimologist” William Thalbitzer show his fascination with indigenous magical incantations as an alternative to rational thought. All examples illustrate the artists’ interest in an authentic and uncorrupted culture, which they reflect on with awareness of inauthenticity and second-hand acquisition. The effects of duplication, simultaneity, and secundarity arising from the three principles drive a reflective discourse on media through which awareness of the crisis of modernity is sublimated, revealed, or made the subject of artistic exploration.     

Appeals for European solidarity as calls for colonial violence: British and German public debates around 1900

Abstract

While recent scholarship has emphasized the role of the colonial experience in the development of the idea of Europe and European integration, notions of European solidarity in the age of imperialism have largely been ignored. This paper investigates the specific context in which journalists and politicians voiced such pleas for solidarity, explores the motivations for them, and probes their limits in times of tension. A closer look at the actors involved illustrates the strictures placed on ideas of European solidarity and illuminates the limited potential of projects of integration prior to 1914. However, latter considerations notwithstanding, a discourse on European solidarity in a colonial context did emerge in the decades before the First World War, allowing early proponents of integration to view colonialism as a field for common European action.     

From Batticaloa via Basel to Berlin. Transimperial Science in Ceylon and Beyond around 1900

ABSTRACT

Recent historiographies of ‘Science and Empire’ have successfully critiqued older euro-centric narratives. They highlighted how science was ‘co-produced’ through interactions between knowledgeable European and non-European actors in colonial ‘contact zones’, and how this ‘pidginised knowledge’ circulated through networks across various sites within the British Empire. This article shares and expands this approach. By focussing on continental European scholars in Ceylon around 1900, it argues that scientific networks were never confined to a particular empire. Science among Europeans was, rather, multi-lingual, mostly cross-disciplinary and always transimperial. Applying such an approach to the history of science in late colonial Ceylon allows us to uncover entanglements between historical processes that have for too long remained subject matters of disconnected historiographies: the emergence of Buddhist revivalism, evolutionary theories about human origins, the transformation from ‘liberal race science’ to Nazi eugenics in Germany, and the surfacing of British cultural anthropology.     

Conflicting images of the Zuider Zee around 1900: nation-building and the struggle against water

In 1918, the Dutch government decided to enclose and reclaim the Zuider Zee (later called the IJsselmeer). The preceding decades had been marked by broad public debate about the utility and urgency of the project. Around 1900, its proponents constructed images of the region and of the Dutch nation in which the Zuider Zee was no longer a crossroads. They emphasized the backwardness of the area and depicted the sea as a domestic enemy, its violent storms posing a threat to the nation. Cornelis Lely’s Zuider Zee proposal (1891) promised a bright future for both the region and the Netherlands as a whole. The struggle against the water would revitalize the nation (by stimulating nation-building) and modernize its international image (perceived as a picturesque but archaic country). Opponents of the project feared the high costs and developed a counter-image: the Zuider Zee region as heartland of ‘authentic’ Dutch culture, a heritage that would be jeopardized by the project. The article concludes by highlighting the synchronicity of the non-synchronous: the Zuider Zee region was envisioned as a region living in the past, thereby constituting an ‘internal Other’ in a country undergoing rapid modernization around 1900.     

A life of the cell: forms and space

The , elaborated during the 19th century by researchers such as Lorenz Oken, Matthias Schleiden, Theodor Schwann and Rudolf Virchow, greatly modified the conception of life that Man had had up to then, since it asserted that the cell is the basic organic unit of all living beings and that every living being stems from a cell. Indeed, the study of the unicellular paramecium shows that a cell must be considered as a complete living form insofar as it illustrates by feeding, growing, defending and reproducing the general fate of all living creatures. Its living space, generated by its movements, is relative to its needs and therefore to its behaviour.     

Evaluating the efficiency of museums using multiple outputs: evidence from a regional system of museums in Spain

Data Envelopment Analysis is used to evaluate museum efficiency. This approach enables us to create a relative efficiency measure for each museum, taking into account resources used by museums and the performance of their activities based on four well-defined tasks: conservation, research, communication and exhibition. Empirical analysis of data from a regional museum system in Spain is performed, considering a complex production function with several inputs and outputs. The main findings indicate that at least half the museums chosen operate efficiently, with the major cause for inefficiency being inadequate resource management. Only few museums evidenced significant inadequate scaling problems. Major progress, mainly due to improvements in internal efficiency, is evident in the museum system ratios when analysing productivity evolution using the Malmquist Index. By contrast, technological change has less impact, proving that cultural heritage is less receptive to new technologies as compared to other cultural industries.     

Gender and social change: new forms of independence for Simbu women

This article discusses gender roles and behavior and changing relationships between the sexes resulting from Western influence on the Simbu people in Papua New Guinea. Sexual segregation and taboos, cult secrecy, and male domination of women have weakened during 50 years of contact with the West. The observations upon which this paper is based were made during 1958-65 and through individual and group interviews obtained in 1976, 1984, 1985, and 1987. Simbu women have been self-sufficient while appearing to comply with male dominance and group claims. More younger women are now asserting their individuality. With Westernization, many home crafts have been abandoned. Women have responded to new ideas and economic goals by promoting the education of their children. A notable few women have achieved professional positions or business success and have joined a new class of elite citizens with opportunities to expand their lives in ways formerly unimaginable. Both urban men and women retain close ties with their rural families. Urban men depend upon rural support groups to achieve their political ambitions. When successful, these men distribute favors to their rural supporters. Urban women may incorporate rural relatives into their urban households, but many reject their own domestic roles. This new urban elite is still in the formative stage and it is impossible to predict whether it will ultimately reject its rural foundation to embrace an urban multi-ethnic affiliation.     

Artifacts of the neurosciences: A resource guide to museums and collections

ABSTRACT

Medical museums and collections care for important artifacts relating to the history of the neurosciences across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Europe. This essay highlights the collections and galleries of greatest interest and worth a visit. It also provides a list of online directories of medical museums and bibliography of related publications.     

From revolutionary heroism to cultural heritage: museums,memory and representation in Laos

ABSTRACT. Museum exhibitions in Laos represent two main strands of Lao national identity discourse. First, they glorify the ‘liberation struggle’ of the so‐called ‘Lao multiethnic people’ under the leadership of the Lao People's Revolutionary Party, and therefore serve as important ideological tools for the current regime's self‐legitimisation. Second, they display the history and cultural heritage of the Lao nation, providing the postcolonial state with a narrative of historical continuity and civilisation that is focused mostly on the dominant ethnic Lao culture. This article explores the contradictions within official images of the Lao nation‐state and how these opposing strands of national identity compete or interact. Museums as key arenas of ideological tensions constitute illuminating fields of research on discourses of national identity in Laos.     

博物馆数字化科普平台建设

建设博物馆数字化的科普平台,加强了对馆藏文物的保护能力,促进了博物馆的历史文化教育和传播功能,具有重大的现实意义和深远的历史意义。本工作将介绍其构建方法:采用全景拍摄、三维扫描等数字化信息采集技术,对博物馆建筑的内外景、重点馆藏文物进行信息采集,构建虚拟的历史遗迹遗存、网上博物馆,将实体博物馆以数字化方式完整呈现,通过互联网/移动互联网提供身临其境的虚拟参观服务;采用二维码、电子标签、混合定位等技术,为现场观众提供自助音视频文化科普导览服务;策划制作面向广大青少年的反映中国历史文化遗产的4D影视科普作品及建设面向普通观众开放的博物馆4D动感影厅工程播放系统,以此构建博物馆数字化科普平台。     

Speaking for the past in the present: Text,authority and learning in archaeology museums

Abstract

This paper examines the development of debates surrounding the nature of curatorial authority and of public education in archaeology museums, with particular reference to texts accompanying exhibitions of prehistoric material in England and Scotland. Traditionally, such texts have been conceived of as authoritative aids to museum education and communication. However, since the late 1980s, they have been criticised, particularly on the grounds of curatorial bias and inaccessibility. As a consequence, a new ‘cultural approach’ to museum texts was developed in the 1990s, based upon curatorial principles of critical awareness and public responsibility. The resultant texts have received mixed responses from museum archaeologists and visitors, whose perspectives reflect contemporary political tensions in Britain. They also highlight the fundamental question of the future status and role of text in museums. The answer proposed here is that texts, although not entirely popular with visitors, will remain key elements of archaeology museum displays, and that differences of curatorial approach and opinion, as expressed through texts, are beneficial to learning in archaeology museums.     

温湿度场仿真模拟在博物馆环境监测中的应用研究

针对博物馆当前的环境监测方式无法全面感知温湿度空间分布的问题,本研究引入与数据同化(EnKF)算法相结合的计算流体动力学(CFD)模拟方法,以某博物馆的展厅空间为例,获得可视化的温湿度场仿真模拟结果,并结合藏品保护要求进行数据分析和相关讨论。经与实时监测数据对比,基于数据同化的CFD模拟准确性良好,误差在可接受范围内。本研究引入的技术方法实现了博物馆环境监测从“点监测”到“场监测”的转变,后续可为博物馆藏品预防性保护提供更加科学有效的技术支撑。     

馆藏剥制动物标本害虫防治法的研究进展

剥制动物标本作为自然博物馆的重要藏品,具有极高的收藏、研究和展览价值,但因其本身富含有机质,极易遭受害虫的损害。传统有毒化学药品消杀法是博物馆防治害虫的重要方法,该法在将数以万计的剥制动物标本成功保存下来的同时也给人类健康和自然环境带来了严重的危害。科学家一直在探寻各种新型的动物标本害虫防治方法,希望在防治虫害和保护人类健康及自然环境之间找到最佳的平衡点。国内博物馆收藏有数量庞大的剥制动物标本,但相应的害虫防治技术研究却相对滞后并严重阻碍了博物馆行业的健康发展。在综合国内外现有相关文献的基础上,对剥制动物标本制作工艺、虫害及防治方法的研究进展综述,以期为我国博物馆工作提供参考资料。