Museums and Exhibitions as Materialisations of Knowledge Orders

The history of the museum is closely connected not only with the history
of collecting and collections, but also with the history of science and
the humanities in Europe and the Western world. Science museums, natural
history museums, cultural history and art museums have - by means of
their presentation of objects - always been sites of both the production
and the circulation of knowledge. On the one hand, objects, artefacts
and specimens have been collected and classified in order to gain
empirical and/or theoretical insights and thereby produce knowledge. On
the other hand, the resulting collections were and are used in
exhibitions in order to communicate academic findings to a broader
audience and thereby popularise scientific/academic knowledge. Hence,
museum collections as well as displays can be understood as
manifestations of specific, historically shaped popular or academic
orders of knowledge. However, knowledge is not only stored and
transformed through objects in museums. Rather, museums themselves can
be regarded as artefacts and as »morphomes«, which establish, reinforce
and transmit, but also transform and reconfigure systems of knowledge.
The aim of the conference is to discuss different types of museums and
exhibitions from this angle, and particularly to reflect on
transformative moments in the history of museums.

Wednesday, April 13
Keynote Speech

19.30 Alain Schnapp (Paris) Aesthetics of Ruins, Aesthetics of Cabinets of Curiosities from the Ancient Near East to the Age of Enlightenment
21.00 Welcome Reception

Thursday, April 14
Collecting and Exhibiting the Self and the Other

09.00 Dietrich Boschung
Begrüßung / Welcome Address Larissa Förster & Jörn Lang
Introduction

09.45 Dominik Collet (Göttingen) Staging Separation - Distant Worlds in
Early Modern Museums

10.30 COFFEE BREAK

11.00 Timon Screech (London) Mirrored Knowledge: Rangaku Collections in
Japan

11.45 Christina Kreps (Denver) Expanding the Museum Concept Across Time,
Space, and Cultures

12.30 LUNCH BREAK

14.30 Amy Lonetree (Santa Cruz) Indigenizing Museums: Representing
Native Voice in National and Tribal Museums

15.15 Paul Williams (New York) Tangible Expressions of the Postcolonial
Nation: Biculturalism at the Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa

16.00 Discussant: Patricia Hayes (Cape Town/IK Morphomata Fellow)

Friday, April 15
Transformative Moments in Art, History and Science Museums

10.00 Susan Walker (Oxford) Crossing Cultures, Crossing Time: A
Transformative Moment for the Ashmolean Museum

10.45 Renate Flagmeier (Berlin) Sammlungsstrukturen, Raumkompositionen
und Dingkonstellationen

11.30 Heidi Amrein (Zürich) Some Thoughts on the Development of
Knowledge Transfer at the Swiss National Museum

12.15 LUNCH BREAK

14.15 Helmut Trischler (München)
Die Kodifizierung der Wissensordnung von Naturwissenschaft und Technik.
Das Wissenschafts- und Technikmuseum an der langen Wende zum 20.
Jahrhundert

15.00 Petra Lutz (Dresden) Die Popularisierung des Menschen.
Konstellationen von Objekten und Betrachtern im Deutschen Hygiene-Museum

15.45 Concluding Discussion