Transforming Knowledge Orders: Museums, Collections and Exhibitions

The history of museums is closely connected not only with the history of collecting and collections, but also with the history of science and humanities. Collections and exhibitions reflect scientific theory and scholarly practice, and in turn shape them. Hence, museums transmit and disseminate, yet also produce knowledge. On the one hand, they visualise and stabilise orders of knowledge through assembling, classifying and fixing objects in exhibitions; on the other hand, new academic paradigms and political changes lead to rearrangements of facts and artefacts in museum storerooms and displays. This volume brings together case studies from various historical and cultural contexts that illuminate such dynamics. Its point of departure is transcultural collections and exhibitions such as cabinets of curiosities and ethnographic collections, whose attempts to inventorise and display the world testify to the desire for, but also the difficulties in establishing and maintaining orders of knowledge. A particular focus is on transformative moments in the history of museums, in particular on the early 1900s, when science and technology museums were established, and on more recent times, which have seen the refurbishment of numerous art and ethnographic museums

El Antropoceno, ¿un concepto geológico o cultural, o ambos?

When Paul J. Crutzen and Eugene F. Stoermer in 2000 proposed to introduce a new geological time, the Anthropocene, they could hardly foresee the remarkable double carrier to the new term. Only a few years later, the geological community established the Anthropocene Working Group, which started to examine possible periodizations. Scholars from numerous other disciplines have understood the Anthropocene as a cultural concept. Anthropologists and historians, sociologists and political scientists, philosophers and theologians have tried to make sense of the Age of Humans. In addition, the media have developed a deep interest in the broader cultural ramifications of the concept. The article sheds light on the debate about the Anthropocene and discusses its dual careers as a geological and a cultural term.Cuando Paul J. Crutzen y Eugene F. Stoermer propusieron en 2000 un nuevo tiempo geológico, el Antropoceno, difícilmente previeron la doble connotación del término. Pocos años después, la comunidad geológica comenzó a investigar las evidencias científicas y estableció el Grupo de Trabajo del Antropoceno, que ha examinado posibles marcadores y periodizaciones de la nueva época. Investigadores de otras disciplinas identifican al Antropoceno como concepto cultural. Antropólogos e historiadores, sociólogos y politólogos, filósofos y teólogos, y representantes de otras comunidades académicas han intentado dar sentido a la época de los seres humanos a partir de sus respectivas miradas. Los medios de comunicación también han desarrollado interés en las ramificaciones culturales más amplias del concepto. Este artículo arroja luz sobre el debate acerca del Antropoceno y analiza su trayectoria dual como término geológico y cultural