Engaging Specimens’ Materiality and Meaning

This workshop led by Elaina Foley (Yale '23) brings heritage studies, artistic interventions, history of natural history, and feminist science and technology studies into conversations around ‘paraobjects’, an emerging term used by museum studies scholars to critically engage with objects such as specimen records, containers, preparatory materials, archival photographs, or specimen labels. In particular, we will attend to the conversations embedded within these materials: negotiations over value, production, and meaning. These conversations offer insights into the ways that natural history specimens have been formed into the ‘nature’ we find in museum halls and archives today.

Registration is required.

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