Description
The essays and original visualizations collected in Natural Things in Early Modern Worlds explore the relationships among natural things - ranging from pollen in a gust of wind to a carnivorous pitcher plant to a shell-like skinned armadillo - and the humans enthralled with them.
Episodes from 1500 to the early 1900s reveal connected histories across early modern worlds as natural things traveled across the Indian Ocean, the Ottoman Empire, Pacific islands, Southeast Asia, the Spanish Empire, and Western Europe. In distant worlds that were constantly changing with expanding networks of trade, colonial aspirations, and the rise of empiricism, natural things obtained new meanings and became alienated from their origins. Tracing the processes of their displacement, each chapter starts with a piece of original artwork that relies on digital collage to pull image sources out of place and to represent meanings that natural things lost and remade.
Accessible and elegant, Natural Things is the first study of its kind to combine original visualizations with the history of science. Museum-goers, scholars, scientists, and students will find new histories of nature and collecting within. Its playful visuality will capture the imagination of non-academic and academic readers alike while reminding us of the alienating capacity of the modern life sciences.
Table of Contents
Introduction: Natural Things in Early Modern Worlds
Mackenzie Cooley, Anna Toledano, and Duygu Yıldırım
On the Design
Zoë Sadokierski and Katie Dean
Part I: Manipulated
1. Pollen: The Sexual Life of Plants in Mesoamerica
Helen Burgos-Ellis
2. Bezoar: Medicine in the Belly of the Beast
Mackenzie Cooley
3. Canal: Cross-Cultural Encounters and Control of Water
Alexander Statman
4. Ambergris: From Sea to Scent in Renaissance Italy
Mackenzie Cooley and Kathryn Biedermann
Part II: Felt
5. Squid: Natural History as Food History
Whitney Barlow Robles
6. Coffee: Of Melancholic Turkish Bodies and Sensory Experiences
Duygu Yıldırım
7. Manchineel: Power, Pain, and Knowledge in the Lesser Antilles
Thomas C. Anderson
8. Pitcher Plant: Drowning in her Sweet Nectar
Elaine Ayers
Part III: Preserved
9. Leaf: The Materiality of Early Modern Herbals
Julia Heideklang
10. Armadillo: An Animal in Search of a Place
Florencia Pierri
11. Bird: Living Names of Félix de Azara’s Lost Collection
Anna Toledano
12. Brain: Objecthood, Subjecthood, and the Genius of Gauss
Nicolaas Rupke
Epilogue: Nature’s Narratives
Paula Findlen
Afterword: The Disorder of Things
Alan Mikhail
Index
