Wonders without wounds: On singularity, museum and organisation

Abstract

This paper consists of two parts. The first provides a philosophical history of the concept of wonder, taking Heidegger’s reading of the Greek verb thaumazein (‘to wonder’) as its point of departure. It shows how the Greek sense of wonder, understood as a dwelling in the everyday, has changed over time. Wonder becomes understood as curiosity and amazement, and gradually turns into something suspicious in the modern age. The second part illustrates how the modern loss of wonder that Heidegger speaks of can also be seen in the history of the Western museum, in particular its transition from Wunderkammer, or cabinet of curiosities, in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, to the birth of the modern museum at the end of the eighteenth centur y. The paper argues that the modern museum has developed a way of organising its objects that destroys their singularity, and that thereby the experience of wonder in the Greek sense of thaumazein is lost. The tentative conclusion suggests that the hostility to wonder as manifested in the modern museum can also be found in forms of modern organisation in general, and that it is embodied in organisational figures like the manager, the professional and the knowledge worker.

The genealogy of the zoo: Collection, park and carnival

“…Within this period, there does appear to be a move from the idea of collecting many particular and wonderful items, to the collection of a series of items which could be compared for their forms and functions. Kaulingfreks et al (2011) suggest that this is an example of the decline of wonder, and the move towards the production of institutions that address ‘a hidden correspondence, an underlying classification, a secret relationship’. (p. 322).…”

“…The tiger needs to stay dangerous, and the intelligence of dolphins must remain a mystery. Wonder, in the sense used by Kaulingfreks et al (2011), must not be expunged or suppressed, but is actually required if the zoo is to provide a spectacle to justify the entrance price. This is not some metaphysical wildness, something pre-social, but something that must be conjured, produced by the institution in order that it can be recognized as distinctive as a structured encounter between humans and their others.…”

An archival feminist pedagogy: unlearning and objects as affective knowledge companions

“…(Ahmed 2008, 250) If wonder is what activates conscientiazation, then where and in what circumstances might such encounters happen? As Kaulingfreks, Spoelstraand, and ten Bos (2011) note, the loss of wonder within organizations and museums is directly linked to the development of scientific methods of classification and the appearance of categories such as the manager, the professional, the expert and the knowledge worker. Hence, we are interested in the capacity of this archive to re-enchant rather disenchant feminist knowledge at a time when the increasing turn to measure and quantify 'outputs' within higher education risks squashing out the wonder of teaching, learning researching and discovering together.…”