Posts Tagged ‘Museum’

Event 2, Day 1: The Wellcome Collection and Library

Thursday, March 25th, 2010

Dear Friends,

I am very pleased to be re-united with some familiar faces and to meet some new ones.  Again, this seems like a wonderful group and I’m sure that the next two days will be just as much fun and as useful as today.  I am going to take a slightly different approach to documenting these events.  Instead of attaching all of my pictures, I’m going to let Sharon put them where she sees fit.  I have noticed that I do not have much server space left on the LitSciMed server so I must restrict my ‘official’ documentation to text for now.  Hopefully, I’ll be able to do something more creative with the photographs (as well as pass them onto Sharon and anyone else who wants copies) at a later date but it’ll mean more faffing around than it did with the first event and I’m getting to a place where I can write after a much longer journey than up the stairs to the room in St Deiniols!

So, what happened today? Let us see!

We had some great sessions run by the Wellcome Collection team, at least three of whom recognised me from the library.  You see, I practically live in that library anyway, spending at least half of the week in there.  It’s my favourite place to work.  The other half of the week (when I’m not engaged in teaching or going to seminars et cetera, is spent in the British Library.  The BL is my second place to work – even though some of their security guards are ruffians! That said, even though I use the library extensively already, I discovered some useful things from Jenn Philips-Bacher: I always wondered what the ‘lightbox’ was on the Wellcome catalogue! Also, someone who I have only ever seen being quiet, spoke very well about some cabinet doors (William Schupbach.  Carol Reeves also gave a lovely talk about some ‘lies’ and gave us all some diaries.  I am the only one I know of with a 1940 diary.  I’m going to wait until the days of that year align with the days of the 1940 year and use a good quality diary! She also set up a competition that I hope others will enter (I certainly will!) to make a history of medicine movie: deadline is 1st June… I’m going to have a bash at that after Easter! Also, Ross McFarlane shepherded us though this adventure providing an expert introduction and the glue that stuck it all together.

So, what did I learn today? I think that’s a question that’s rather difficult to answer, if I’m not going to just write about the odd trick I’ve learned for the library catalogue.  You see, this session – indeed, this event – is about objects, using objects, and thinking about objects.  I’m going to have to do this extensively in my own Ph.D., I think, as I don’t want my writing to be an anthology.  Similarly, however, I’m not keen on simply applying theorists like many seem content to be doing.  I agree that they have a lot to offer but I don’t think theory is the be-all and end-all.  I remember a discussion on this website a few months ago where Jerome said that we were perhaps ‘post-theory’.  I think that’s largely true – at least, that is, we can operate within the framework of theories without refining theories being the crux of the work.  Anyway, the question of using objects is one that I’ve already paid a lot of attention to.  One thing that William mentioned that stuck with me, however, is that a painting is only 1mm or so of image and the rest is object (I’m paraphrasing!).  I like that and I think it will sit well with my thinking about the ‘it-narrative’ that I’m going to write a little about in the coming days.

I think I’ll be better placed to talk about objects and my thinking about them and their use in the next two days.  Today was more geared towards finding and using objects in a very general manner.

Contrary to St. Deiniols… the food in the hotel was awfully dry, expensive, and left me with a gaping spiritual hole…

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MOSI and John Rylands Library: Day 5

Friday, January 8th, 2010

Dear Cohort,

I am sitting in the room in which I grew up, all packed and ready to go back to London again tomorrow.  I hope that I can make it.  It was a pleasure to meet everyone and I have a funny feeling that I’ll be seeing many of you again.  I feel some professional and personal friendships have been forged, and more so than usually happens at events like this.  Could this be down to Sharon’s judgement of people to attend the event? If it isn’t down to her judgement, it’s surely down to her excellent choice of location, and finger-on-the-pulse knowledge of her subject.  So, thank you Sharon.

Today began, after a slight delay, with a trip to MOSI: Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry.  I used to go there as a child and again as an undergraduate.  I remember crying at the sheer size and noise of the machines.  I didn’t like them.  They weren’t beautiful to me then.  I remember my Nan telling me how she used to work in a factory with some of them.  I didn’t think it was anything special at that time because there were many people showing similar children around telling similar tales.  Only when visiting as an undergraduate and, again, as a postgraduate, did I notice how sublime these powerful machines were.  The difference between this visit and the last, as I tried to communicate to Pauline Webb, was that last time I was a performing arts student and was looking at the performativity of the machines; what they afforded as objects, as bodies that interact with their environment and affect the individual.  I suppose a kind of phenomenological sensibility.  This time around, though, I’ve migrated disciplines and am more attuned to text and context, and to what the individual machine might offer to my understanding of literary texts of the times they are concerned with.  There was a particular piece of ‘kit’ from 1712 – some kind of atmospheric pressure pump – that I didn’t know existed.  These things were relatively abundant – if not necessarily quotidian – during their time.  I think that this would colour the reading of any texts remotely related to or featuring technology.  We’ll see about that when I next come to analyse a text.

Then there was John Ryland’s Library.  And what a beautiful library it was, too.  (Possibly) the oldest piece of a book of he New Testament was right there in front of our very eyes, as well as other treasures.  We were shown some manuscripts consisting of not a small amount of Manchester pride.  I learnt that vomit doesn’t feature as prominently in the History of Science as I thought it might…

Then before home, I bought another book on the History of Writing that looks fascinating and will have to find a place for.  A few of us went for a cup of tea and pint of beer (in that order) after which I took the train home.

Now, alongside the written work, I have a quest to be a public-facing academic.  I was once a performing arts student so should really think of ways in which to apply that prior knowledge to promote my new passion.

This week we have been truly spoilt.  I am incredibly grateful to have this opportunity and deeply thank everyone who organised it, presented, and took part.  I like being spoilt and think I could get used to it!

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