Nature and culture

Objects, disciplines and the Manchester Museum

Samuel Alberti

• Publisher: Manchester University Press
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN:
  9780719089039
  9780719081149
• eBook ISBN:
  9781526129543
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Museum Studies

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.

Table of contents

• NATURE AND CULTURE: Objects, disciplines and the Manchester Museum
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• Acknowledgements
• List of abbreviations
• Introduction: museum historiographies
• CHAPTER 1: Prologue: the Manchester Natural History Society
• CHAPTER 2: Nature: scientific disciplines in the museum
• CHAPTER 3: Culture: artefacts and disciplinary formation
• CHAPTER 4: Acquisition: collecting networks and the museum
• CHAPTER 5: Practice: technique and the lives of objects in the collection
• CHAPTER 6: Visitors: audiences and objects
• CHAPTER 7: Conclusion: the museum in the twentieth century
• Bibliography
• Index