The Historical Character of Biological Bodies

Description

The Historical Character of Biological Bodies: The Construction of the Anthropological Gaze in the Beginnings of Romanian Anthropology

Speaker: Alexandra Ion (University of Bucharest)
Respondent: Richard Staley (HPS, University of Cambridge)

 

Abstract

From the early 1900s and up until 1944, the Romanian anatomist and anthropologist Francisc I. Rainer (1874-1944) gathered a collection comprising approximately 6800 well-preserved contemporary human skulls and pathological postcranial specimens, archaeological skeletons, tissue samples and anthropological photographs. It gradually took shape along the lines of the newly introduced anthropological science in Bucharest, a repository of visual evidence for the scientific research. However, what tied together a seemingly diverse array of collected materialities and bodies? It is the goal of my presentation to explore the way anthropological knowledge and bodies were created in the space of the laboratory through the use of such resources, and to understand the way in which instruments, visual displays and texts were connected in the process.
 

 

Open to all. No registration required

Part of the Global Science Research Group seminar series