The Digital Ark: Early Modern Collections of Curiosities in England and Scotland, 1580-1700
Museums and the Shaping of Knowledge
Secondary Title (i.e. Proceedings Title):Heritage. Editions of this work: Periodical Title: Publication Type:Book, Whole Authors:Hooper-Greenhill,Eilean Editors: Publisher:Routledge Place of Publication:London ; New York Publication Date:1992 Alternate Date (i.e. Conference Date): Volume: Issue: Start Page:232 End Page: Abstract: Descriptors/Keywords:MuseumsAdministration
Museum techniques
Educational aspects
ISBN:0415061458 URL:
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Annotation:Hooper-Greenhill looks to the early history of museums to force an examination about the epistemic assumptions about the role of museums in knowledge making and dissemination. Drawing on Foucault's theory of the episteme, she examines how the early collections drew on the intellectual tradition of the middle ages and Renaissance humanism to feature interpretation and the search for similitude and relationships of resemblance in the object world, with close association with the mnemonic practices of the period. From the outset, these collections were sites of serious study, exemplified in the case study of the Royal Society of London and its Repository (ch. 6). In putative approach of the seventeenth-century collection was empirical comparative analysis that emphasized the difference between things (134).