At this moment I am working on an exam.
During my search for some extra information I found this article on the web. I will write my comments on this article after my exam.
My comments on this article:
Weblog modern equivalent of a Wunderkammer
Wiki as Wunderkammer
A Wunderkammer is a collection of curious artifacts, a personal museum of sorts.
Wunderkammern are more than collections and different from museums. Many historians and anthropologists identify 17th century Europe as the birthplace (or heyday) of Wunderkammern. Of course, doing so ignores the entire history of the Roman Empire and people, who famously collected living and dead curiosities on a grand scale a millennium before. In Mathematical Wunderkammern, William Mueller writes this about Wunderkammern:
“A giddy craze was sweeping across Europe at the turn of the 17th century. The wealthy and the well-connected were hoarding things—strange things—into obsessive personal collections. Starfish, forked carrots, monkey teeth, alligator skins, phosphorescent minerals, Indian canoes, and unicorn tails were acquired eagerly and indiscriminately. Associations among these objects, if they were made at all, often reflected a collector’s personal vision of an underlying natural “order”. Critical taxonomy was rarely in evidence.“
Wunderkammern do not exhibit much “critical taxonomy”, because that’s not their purpose. As Mueller says, “[Wunderkammern] often reflected a collector’s personal vision of an underlying natural “order”.” A Wunderkammer is not a natural history museum; it’s a personal narrative set forth in objects.
In many ways, weblogs are the modern equivalent of Wunderkammern. (more…)
