An edition of Tangible Things (2015)

Tangible Things

Making History through Objects

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Last edited by Altercari
April 22, 2021 | History
An edition of Tangible Things (2015)

Tangible Things

Making History through Objects

  • 1 Want to read

• Presents an innovative and unprecedented exhibition as a new framework for thinking about museum collections
• Challenges the boundaries between museums and between academic disciplines
• Introduces an astonishing array of objects hidden in Harvard collections
• Each chapter includes accessible and entertaining case studies
• 200 beautiful photographs that illustrate modes of close looking
• Grants access to a companion website, allowing deeper exploration into the more than 200 objects in the original exhibition

Publish Date
Language
English
Pages
280

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Edition Availability
Cover of: Tangible Things
Tangible Things: Making History Through Objects
2015, Oxford University Press, Incorporated
in English
Cover of: Tangible things
Tangible things: making history through objects
2015, Oxford University Press
in English
Cover of: Tangible Things
Tangible Things: Making History through Objects
2015, Oxford University Press
Paperback in English

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Book Details


Table of Contents

About the Companion Website
Page ix
Preface and Acknowledgements
Page ix
Introduction : Thinking with things
Page 1
1. THINGS IN PLACE
Page 21
Natural History • An Orchid: Say it with Flowers
Page 38
Anthrolopology and Archaeology • A Glass Jar: A Surface Find in the Semitic Museum
Page 46
Books and Manuscripts • A Papyrus Fragment: Plato from the Sharp-Nosed Trash
Page 51
Art • A Limestone Mold: Set in Stone
Page 55
Science and Medicine • A Collection of Powders: Political Chemistry
Page 59
History • A Field-Hockey Dress: Fit for a Knockabout Sport
Page 64
2. THINGS UNPLACED
Page 71
A Gift from the Ladies of Llangollen: Memorandums of a Cottage
Page 80
A Galapagos Tortoise Shell: "Ship Abigail"
Page 85
A Carved Spoon: Pointing a Finger
Page 93
A Mexican Tortilla: From Exotic to Ordinary
Page 97
A Beetle Ornament: Exotic Opulence
Page 103
A Board Game: Tracking Blondie
Page 108
3. THINGS OUT OF PLACE
Page 115
An Artist's Palette: the Psychology of Vision
Page 135
Bluebird: Calling for the Vote
Page 141
A Hand Plow: Plowshares and Swords
Page 148
A Carved Bird Skull: Nature or Culture?
Page 152
4. THINGS IN STORIES—STORIES IN THINGS
Page 159
Objects as Portals
Page 164
A Nostalgic Painting: The Message
Page 172
Transits of Venus
Page 179
Changing Stories about American Indians
Page 186
Photo Essay: Unexpected Discoveries: The Joy of Object Photography
Page 193
Appendix: Harvard Collections that Contributed to Tangible Things
Page 209
Notes
Page 217
About the Authors
Page 243
Picture Credits
Page 245

Edition Notes

Alk. paper. 200 colour illustrations.

Published in
New York

Classifications

Library of Congress
GN406, GN406 .U57 2015

Contributors

Photographer
Samantha van Gerbig

The Physical Object

Format
Paperback
Pagination
xvii, 259 p.
Number of pages
280
Dimensions
10 x 7 x inches

ID Numbers

Open Library
OL25780146M
ISBN 10
019938228X
ISBN 13
9780199382286
LCCN
2014028717
OCLC/WorldCat
878299436

Work Description

In a world obsessed with the virtual, tangible things are once again making history. Tangible Things invites readers to look closely at the things around them, ordinary things like the food on their plate and extraordinary things like the transit of planets across the sky. It argues that almost any material thing, when examined closely, can be a link between present and past.

The authors of this book pulled an astonishing array of materials out of storage—from a pencil manufactured by Henry David Thoreau to a bracelet made from iridescent beetles—in a wide range of Harvard University collections to mount an innovative exhibition alongside a new general education course. The exhibition challenged the rigid distinctions between history, anthropology, science, and the arts. It showed that object-centered inquiry inevitably leads to a questioning of categories within and beyond history.

Tangible Things is both an introduction to the range and scope of Harvard's remarkable collections and an invitation to reassess collections of all sorts, including those that reside in the bottom drawers or attics of people's houses. It interrogates the nineteenth-century categories that still divide art museums from science museums and historical collections from anthropological displays and that assume history is made only from written documents. Although it builds on a larger discussion among specialists, it makes its arguments through case studies, hoping to simultaneously entertain and inspire. The twenty case studies take us from the Galapagos Islands to India and from a third-century Egyptian papyrus fragment to a board game based on the twentieth-century comic strip "Dagwood and Blondie." A companion website catalogs the more than two hundred objects in the original exhibition and suggests ways in which the principles outlined in the book might change the way people understand the tangible things that surround them. - Publisher.

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