Newly available in paperback, this book takes the University of Manchester's Museum as its subject. By setting the museum in its cultural and intellectual contexts, Nature and culture explores twentieth-century collecting and display, and the status of the object in the modern world. Beginning with the origins of the Manchester Museum, accounting for its development as an internationally renowned university museum, and concluding at its major expansion at the turn of the millennium, this book casts new light on the history of museums. How did objects become knowledge? Who encountered museum objects on their way to museums? What happened to collections within the museum? How did visitors use and respond to objects? In answering these questions, Nature and culture illuminates not only the history of one institution, but also contributes to wider discussions in the history of science, cultural history and museology. -- .

Science museums have paradoxes at their core. They must be accessible and fun while representing increasingly complex science. They must be both historic and contemporary. Their exhibits attract millions, but most of their objects remain in deep storage, seldom seen. This book delves into these conflicts, revealing the secret lives of science curators; where science objects come from and who uses them; and, ultimately, what science museums are for. With an insider’s eye, Samuel J.M.M. Alberti exposes the idiosyncratic past and intriguing current practice of these institutions, and sets out a map for their future.

In the quiet halls of the natural history museum, there are some creatures still alive with stories, whose personalities refuse to be relegated to the dusty corners of an exhibit. The fame of these beasts during their lifetimes has given them an iconic status in death. More than just museum specimens, these animals have attained a second life as historical and cultural records. This collection of essays--from a broad array of contributors, including anthropologists, curators, fine artists, geographers, historians, and journalists--comprises short "biographies" of a number of famous taxidermized animals. Each essay traces the life, death, and museum "afterlife" of a specific creature, illuminating the overlooked role of the dead beast in the modern human-animal encounter through practices as disparate as hunting and zookeeping. The contributors offer fresh examinations of the many levels at which humans engage with other animals, especially those that function as both natural and cultural phenomena, including Queen Charlotte's pet zebra, Maharajah the elephant, and Balto the sled dog, among others. Readers curious about the enduring fascination with animals who have attained these strange afterlives will be drawn to the individual narratives within each essay, while learning more about the scientific, cultural, and museological contexts of each subject. Ranging from autobiographical to analytical, the contributors' varying styles make this delightful book a true menagerie.

"Contributors" Samuel J. M. M. Alberti, Royal College of Surgeons * Sophie Everest, University of Manchester * Kate Foster * Michelle Henning, University of the West of England, Bristol * Hayden Lorimer, University of Glasgow * Garry Marvin, Roehampton University, London * Henry Nicholls * Hannah Paddon * Merle Patchett * Christopher Plumb, University of Manchester * Rachel Poliquin * Jeanne Robinson, Glasgow Museums * Mike Rutherford, University of the West Indies * Richard C. Sabin, Natural History Museum * Richard Sutcliffe, Glasgow Museums * Geoffrey N. Swinney, University of Edinburgh

This is a vital new work; the first to take the University of Manchester's Museum as its subject. By setting the museum in its cultural and intellectual contexts, "Nature and Culture" explores twentieth-century collecting and display, and the status of the object in the modern world. Beginning with the origins of the Manchester Museum, accounting for its development as an internationally renowned university museum, and concluding at its major expansion at the turn of the millennium, this book casts new light on the history of museums. How did objects become knowledge? Who encountered museum objects on their way to museums? What happened to collections within the museum? How did visitors use and respond to objects? In answering these questions, "Nature and Culture" illuminates not only the history of one institution, but also contributes to wider discussions in the history of science, cultural history and museology

Morbid Curiosities is the first comprehensive study of nineteenth-century medical museums in Britain. It traces the afterlives of diseased body parts, asking how they came to be in these collections, what happened to them there, and who used them.
Pathologists dismembered the dead body and preserved it, whether by injection or by storage in fluid, thereby transforming it into material culture. Thus fragmented body parts followed complex paths - harvested from hospital wards, given to a prestigious institution, or once again fragmented at auction. Human remains acquired new meanings as they were exchanged and, once in museums, specimens were re-integrated to form a physical map of disease. Curators juxtaposed organic specimens with paintings, photographs, and models, and rendered them legible with extensive catalogues - paper, wax, and text formed a series of overlapping systems. They were intended to standardize the educational experience that was the ostensible purpose of most of the museums, and yet visitors refused to be policed, responding powerfully, whether with wonder or disgust.
Morbid Curiosities is a history of the material culture of medical knowledge, from prepared human remains to models, illustrations, and even architectural pillars and galleries.