types, histories and archives spring semester, 20072008web.ceu.hu/crc/syllabi/07-08/history/types,...
TRANSCRIPT
Types, Histories and Archives
Spring semester, 20072008
The course is related to the intellectual, professional and practical work devoted to an
upcoming exhibition. OSA Archivum has been working on an exhibition devoted to the broad
issues of taxonomy, both in the natural sciences, and social institutions like archives, libraries
and museums. (A short description of the exhibition, “The Archives of the living and the dead”
is attached to the syllabus.) The seminar intends to deal with certain complex theoretical
issues that lay, notsohidden in the background of the exhibit: 1. The archives of nature; The
archives of images; The notions of morphology; History of nature versus history of the social;
The “typemethod. The members of the seminar are expected to get involved in the final
phase of the preparatory work of the exhibit; reflect on the show; (if necessary) reconstruct
the exhibit; make use of archives and different taxonomic systems. Theoretical reflexion and
practical – even manual – work go hand in hand in the course of the seminar. The course
provides the opportunity for the participants to get acquainted with with a somewhat
unusually broad spectrum of issues: geology, paleontology, botany, archeology, systematics,
taxonomy, archivaria, epistemology. The aim of the seminar is to help the participants reflect
on crucial problems related to the work of a historian.
Members of the seminar are expected to read text coming from or dealing with different
disciplines; to engage in a constructive, innovative reading and interpretation of the works, to
deposit their archival findings in a collaborative distributed archive, to participate in the final
curatorial work of the exhibition, and write a short essay at the end of the semester. Because
of the need of the upcoming exhibition – due to open on 31 January – the thematic sequence
of the course is somewhat distorted: issues that should be discussed at the very beginning of
the course will be dealt with only at the end of the semester, while topics that logically would
come at the end, will be discussed at the beginning of the course.
Grades will be based on active reading and participation in inclass work (35%); practical
engagement in the exhibition (20%); contribution to the collaborative archive (20%); final
essay (25%).
Topics and readings:
1. The Typemethod.
Readings: Lorraine Daston, Type specimens and Scientific Memory. In: Critical Inquiry, 31
(Autumn, 2004)
2. Epistemology of the Eye.
Readings: Michael Foucault, Classification. In: The Archeology of Knowledge.
Lorraine Daston Peter Galison, Objectivity (Zone Books, 2007) pp. 1753.3. Objectivity and authenticity.
Reading: DastonGalison, op. cit. pp. 55113 (“TruthtoNature”).
4. Typology and Indivduation.
Reading: Ruth Leys, Types of One: Adolf Meyer's Life Chart and the Representation of
Individuality. In: Representations, no. 34. (Spring, 1991).
5. Classifications and its twodimensional and digital discontents.
Reading: Selected chapters from David Weinberger, Everthing is Miscellaneous. (Times
Books, 2007)
6. Wittgenstein in the Archives.
Reading: Carlo Ginzburg, Family Resemblances and Family Trees: Two Cognitive
Metaphors. In: Critical Inquiry, 30. (Spring, 2004)
7. The Institution of Mnemosyne.
Reading: Benjamin H. D. Buchloch, Gerhard Richter's “Atlas”: The Anomic Archive. In:
October, Vol. 88. (Spring, 1999)
8. The body of the archive.
Reading: Allan Sekula, The Body and the Archive. In; October, 39 (Winter 1986).
9. The earthworm as an archivist.
Reading: Charles Darwin, The Formation of Vegetable Mould through the Action of Worms
with Observations on their Habits. (London, 1881)
10. “Deep time” 1.
Readings: Stephen Jay Gould, Thomas Burnett's Battleground of Time
The Power of Narrative The Stinkstones of Oeningen all In: Stephen Jay Gould, The Richness of Life ( Vintage, 2007)
11. “Deep Time” 2.
Reading: Stephen Jay Gould, Time's Arrow, Time's Cycle, chapters 3&4 pp. 61 179.
(Penguin, 1987)
12. Archive and the Sciences.
Readings: Geoffrey C. Bowker, Archival Technology in the Historical Sciences 18001997. In:
History and Technology, 1998 vol. 15. pp. 6987.
Geoffrey Bowker, Memory Practices in the Sciences (MIT 2005) pp. 3573 and 107 135.