Forum

Terry Forum on the Ethics of Displaying the Material Cultures of Knowledge Production

The first Terry Foum took the renovation of the Peabody Museum as an occasion to think across disciplines about the future of museum displays about “science” and “natural history.” Members of the Peabody community have been addressing difficult questions about the meanings of these categories in the twenty-first century. What is natural history the history of? Is science a culturally specific mode of knowledge production, or a form of engagement with the natural world common to many different cultures? An unusual feature of the renovated Peabody will be its History of Science & Technology gallery, displaying technological devices and scientific instruments made primarily in Europe and North America from the sixteenth to the twentieth century, most of which were used in Yale’s science labs. The History of Science & Technology gallery will be adjacent to other galleries dedicated to collections associated with Ancient Egypt, Babylonia, Mesoamerica, and Native American cultures. How might recent scholarship in Indigenous Studies and Museum Studies inform the display of these objects in a way that unsettles the long and oppressive history of dividing cultures with science from those without?

Elizabeth Hoover (UC Berkeley, Environmental Science, Policy & Management) gave an introductory presentation, bringing her expertise in Indigenous Studies, Museum Studies, and Environmental Anthropology, plus recent experience as a consultant for Chicago’s Field Museum. Paola Bertucci, Curator of the Peabody’s History of Science & Technology Collection, described the design process for the renovated gallery. The conversation was moderated by Joanna Radin (Yale, History of Science, Medicine, and Public Health) and Chitra Ramalingam (Yale Center for British Art).