Tuesday, November 10, 2015

CfP: The Authenticity of Collections – an international and interdisciplinary symposium on authenticity, recording, and digitization of collections

Leibniz Graduate School - Herder Institute for Historical Research on Eastern Europe 

Marburg, Germany

March 7-11,  2016

As a result of the “material turn” of the last decade, collections in and of themselves have become objects of research. The materiality of collected objects, questions regarding their authenticity, selection and recording are subjects of transdiciplinary and conceptual debates. In order to investigate these complexes, connections, and interdependencies, scholars have combined methodological and theoretical approaches from various disciplines such as history, art history, archeology, and museology. In a world going ever more digital, immaterial ideas, images, and practices of preservation, necessitate a rethinking and reconceptualization of existing orders.

Combining theoretical approaches with everyday practices of collecting and in collections, this symposium will provide a forum for discussion for graduate and post-graduate students. The host institute of the symposium, the Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe in Marburg, is not only a place for research, but belongs to the few German institutions, where theoretical knowledge on Eastern Europe interacts directly with objects from the region (e.g. books, manuscripts, journals, images).

Therefore, the symposium pursues two goals: on the one hand, it offers a theoretical approach into areas such as Material Cultural Studies and Cultural Heritage Studies; on the other hand, it seeks to illustrate the practices of capturing, recording, and digitizing objects. To that end, participants have the opportunity to conduct concrete projects in the institute’s three collections, the image, map, and document collection. The symposium aspires to provide an unusual insight into the work in, on, and with collections that differs markedly from the experience of “users” and visitors. Thus, following a two-day introduction, the Herder Institute offers 12 researchers the unique possibility to realize their own projects with the support of the experts working in our collections. Passive knowledge of German and listening comprehension are required.



Please submit your letter of motivation and a short CV as well as contact details by December 15, 2015 to: gantnere@herder-institut.de

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