Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T04:05:17.745Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Mobile objects: the space of shells in eighteenth-century France

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2006

BETTINA DIETZ
Affiliation:
Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 1, 80539 München, Germany. Email: [email protected].

Abstract

The frequent distinction made between scientific and purely amateur collections misrepresents the specificity of the field of eighteenth-century natural history. This paper argues that the extent and the boundaries of a scientific field can be determined only within the framework of concrete historical constellations of institutions, protagonists, practices and objects. By tracing the circulation of shells in eighteenth-century France, Paris in particular, between about 1735 and 1780, it becomes evident which individuals or groups actually came into contact with these shells; in what practices of collecting, describing and classification they were involved; and in what spaces they were displayed. Thus the contours of a constellation emerge which differ considerably from those drawn hitherto.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
2006 British Society for the History of Science

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

Research for this essay was made possible by a grant from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft in the context of the research group ‘Kulturelle Inszenierungen von Fremdheit’ at the University of Munich.