Lektor Kasper Risbjerg Eskildsen
(Videnskabsstudier, Institut for Kultur og Identitet, RUC)
The Language of Objects:
Christian Jürgensen Thomsen’s
Science of the Past
tirsdag den 7. december 2010, kl. 17.00
Auditorium 8, H. C. Ørsted Instituttet,
Universitetsparken 5, 2100 København Ø
Foredraget holdes på dansk
The Danish amateur scholar Christian Jürgensen Thomsen has often been described as a founder of modern “scientific” archaeology. Thomsen’s innovation, this paper argues, reflected developments within neighboring fields, such as philology and history. He reacted against historians who limited themselves to histories of texts, and therefore abandoned the earliest human history. Instead he proposed a new history of objects, which included the entire history of humankind. Thomsen’s work as director of the Museum of Nordic Antiquities in Copenhagen was especially important for this renewal. The arrangement of artifacts not only helped him formulate his theories, but also allowed him to present his arguments in a language of objects. Thomsen’s definition of archaeology as a museum science simultaneously placed his branch of archaeology in a closer relationship with other museum sciences, such as geology and comparative anatomy. From the 1840s, Thomsen’s museum became a model for how the study of human artifacts could deliver scientific insights into human nature and the laws of human development.
Kl. 16.30 inviterer Selskabet på kaffe, te og frugt i Institut for Matematiske Fags frokoststue, rum 04.4.19 på 4. sal. Efter foredraget vil der blive lejlighed til at spise middag med foredragsholderen for egen regning.
Jesper Lützen, Sekretær
Opslag
