Gladstone, GladCats and Great Grub

I must confess to being a complete sucker for the ‘famous possessions’ category of objects. Whether it’s Emperor Napoleon’s toothbrush, or a sample of Jeremy Bentham’s skin (one of the more unnerving items on display in the Wellcome Library’s ‘Medicine Man’ exhibition), I am hopelessly fascinated by objects which hold such a direct connection to the ‘celebs’ of history.

So when I encountered Charles Darwin’s walking stick lying nonchalantly among the host of objects collected by Henry Wellcome, the ‘famous possessions’ geek in me let out something of a squeal. I’m sure you will share in my excitement by casting your eyes at the images below, which show the stick itself and the rather intriguing design carved into its handle…..

Naturally, this is one of two Darwinian walking sticks owned by the Wellcome Library (testament to Henry Wellcome’s zeal for collecting). For all you fellow walking stick enthusiasts, information on the other can be found at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/07/health_the_wellcome_collection/html/11.stm

Turning to our object in question then. The stick is 88cm in length and is carved from an elephant tusk, with an engraving featuring a snake among foliage at its handle. It is presented in the exhibition with the date span: 1839 – 1881. Linking to Rachael’s point in her object analysis, this immediately threw up (no vomiting pun intended) a number of questions for me. What does this date span refer to? Was it crafted in 1839? The stick was supposedly custom made for Darwin, which implies this may be the case. If so, what happened in 1881? (Darwin died in 1882. Did he perhaps stop using it in 1881, and thus the ‘life’ of the object came to an end?). As well as raising issues about the minimalistic way objects are presented in the Medicine Man exhibition, this prompts questions about how we interpret the lifespan of objects: is it from their time of creation to their being deposited in a museum? Or is the life of an object more closely linked to its usage and owner?

Moving on from these broader issues surrounding the object, Darwin’s walking stick itself provides us with a great example of how an object can greatly benefit one specific form of research: the biographical. For me, this is one of the strongest ways in which objects can be incorporated into the academic narrative. There are a number of inferences we can make about Darwin through study of this personal possession. His fascination with nature is conveyed through both the material chosen for the stick and the images crafted upon it: this was an interest so keen that it impacted upon the design of everyday objects in Darwin’s life. Much can also be made of the religious connotations surrounding Darwin’s choice of a snake as the stick’s centerpiece (though without knowing more I’ll leave this here!).

The stick serves as a reminder of Darwin’s working methods. Walking has been argued to have been a hugely important activity for Darwin, allowing him time to think through his ideas, as well as providing him with an access point to a natural environment. The care taken with the design of the stick indicates the importance Darwin placed upon this activity.

Significantly, the stick also served a social purpose for Darwin. He was known to make his oncoming presence felt by hitting it with force into the floor as he approached colleagues, critics and others working in scientific circles. Allegedly he did this so often that the sound of a walking stick and his presence became heavily associated. That he may have deployed his walking stick to promote a personal aura contrasts rather sharply with an argument often made about Darwin being reserved and modest in society; a figure who shrank from the notion of his own fame.

So! Darwin’s walking stick can be used to tell us more about his personal interests, working habits and his functioning as a social being. As such, it provides us with an example of how objects can be particularly useful in informing biographical research.

And, most importantly for the ‘famous possessions’ geek, it’s also really really cool!

Dear all,

Just a quick message to draw attention to an AHRC Doctoral Training Event in London  from Tues 16th – Wed 17th February, entitled: ‘Using Archival Sources to Inform Contemporary Policy Debates’

Among the sessions there are workshops on ‘Science, technology and the archive’, which may be of interest.

See here for more: http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/events/training-scheme.htm

Colin

Dear all,

In shameful imitation of Rachel, I’m making a LitSciMed source appeal (because it’s a darn good idea!) .

As part of my project I’m trying to find sources which reveal the experiences of readers who engaged with with the 19th medical press.  These could be in diaries, letters, memoirs or literature. Should anybody stumble across anything that looks relevant, please get in touch.

Sources on readers are notoriously hard to come by, so any aid would be massively appreciated!

Colin

After an early breakfast (a last opportunity to experience the delights of the St. Deiniol’s porridge), we departed for Manchester and Destination 1: MOSI. Here we enjoyed an object handling exercise, which for me showed how our past experiences with objects really shape our expectations and ideas about them. The child in me really enjoyed this!

MOSI itself was a great experience. My group explored the History of Science exhibition, taking in Manchester’s place in the development of science and technology in modern Britain. Following on from this came the wonder that was the John Rylands library. I’m ashamed to say I had never heard of it, and was completely bowled over by its architecture (following on from the Gladstone library, it really made me think about the connections between libraries and churches – libraries as ‘temples of learning’). The array of source material on display was great, and it was fantastic to see some of our group making finds which were relevent to their projects.

And, alas, LitSciMed Event 1 came to an end. A hugely enjoyable week, in so many ways. It is fantastic to be a part of  a community with so many talented students and lecturers. Thank you to all those involved in putting LitSciMed together. Long may it continue!

Day Four marked some of the most heated debate at LitSciMed, and for me, some of the most thought provoking discussions. Sadly the snow brought with it the downside of cancelling our lectures on psychoanalysis, so student presentations replaced this session. Here I learnt the valuable lesson of audience and camera awareness (oops!), as well never to attempt anything ambitious with I.T.! Fantastic talks on David Hartley, creative writing and scientific thought experiments, as well as marriage in the literature of Hardy and Eliot rounded off a great week of student presentations.

Next up was Gowan Dawson’s paper on Richard Owen as a reader of serialized literature, a talk with a *wow* factor if ever there was one. This really got me thinking about the relationships between the types of literature we read and our thought processes, as well as the continuing Darwin-centric nature of works approaching evolution (with publishers putting pressure on authors to include Darwin’s name in the titles of their books and articles e.g. Jim Endersby’s ‘Escaping Darwin’s Shadow’ – No. 20 in our reading pack).

Next we engaged with the hugely controversial ‘Literary Darwinism’. This topic brought out some fantastic discussion and debate, with the topic striking right at the heart of what we perceive the humanities to be. It left me wondering if (a big IF!) literary Darwinism had been put forward in a milder, more sensitive (and polite!) tone, there could be room for it as an approach to literature.

As marxist interpretations focus on class issues, surely evolutionary analyses could deal with notions of competition, attraction and survival in literature? And as Will has hinted at, there may be some potentially fascinating things for a ‘Darwinistic’ approach to say about the acts of writing and of and reading. However, it does seem that – as it stands – literary Darwinism has over-stepped the mark. As Jamie rightly pointed out, characters are not biological entities!

This is a topic I could (and did, in fact) jabber on about for ages! In sum, a great day, rounded off with some sampling of the local ales in Hawarden.

By Day Three I had completely adjusted to my breakfast, lunch and dinner all being prepared with no initative of my own. Suffice to say, the week post-Hawarden has been tough!

We began with a session thinking about the life of manuscripts and the act of transcribing, involving a good deal of squinting and guess work on our part! The session also introduced us to handling material objects, a theme we’d be picking up later in the week!

Next up was a fast-track workshop of essential Literature and Science criticism.  I found Martin Willis’ model of ways to approachthe relationship between the two really helpful here (literature and/as/or/in/over) science. One of these approaches is usually adopted by an author, though often implicitly. Particular questions that came out of these readings were: who is the lay reader? As Will asked in his blog, who has ever met one? It seems that the ‘lay’ reader is a group defined against some sort of specialism (so in this case perhaps a reader without a scientific background).

After this session we enjoyed the sights and sounds of snowy Hawarden. I couldn’t help but be impressed by the kids who were super-prepared for the snow – many a sledge was being made good use of in the park! (though, it should be noted, the odd rubber ring and dish-tray did make an appearance).

In the evening we had yet another fantastic array of project presentations from Jamie, Jeff, Sarah, Naz and Grace.   I found Grace’s bibliotherapy project a fascinating combination of all the themes under discussion at LitSciMed, and it’s great to be seeing these put into therapeutic use. As Sophie commented afterwards, it really makes you believe in the power of literature!

Day Two opened with a seminar taken by Sharon in which we were asked to identify ourselves within one discipline, and to state our reasons for our decision. For me it was interesting to hear the different approaches people used to define themselves – some based this on the academic departments to which they were attached; for others it based on conversations with students from different disciplines, helping to define yourself against something ‘other’.

For me, it was all about the type of questions you ask, and which field of academia best squares up with those questions. This was a really interesting excercise in terms of self-awareness, even if the ultimate conclusion we reached involved the phrase ‘one splodge’!

Next up was Stephanie Snow’s History of Medicine lecture, which gave us (for some reason my text has changed to italics and won’t seem to go back to normal – oh well!) a whistle stop tour of medical history from the Greeks to the present. This offered loads of interesting questions (how did the ‘uniqueness of the individual’ notion in Galenic medicine transfer itself into modern medical understandings?). We were also given a history of how cancer altered its disease identity through time, an important excercise when thinking about a condition so prevalent in our society.

Still in italics. Curse my computer incompetency! The second part of Stephanie’s session gave me plenty of food for thought for my own PhD work, in looking at the way medical innovations such as chloroform were depicted in the popular press. It was especially interesting to see how magazines like ‘Punch’ were undermining the professionalism of the medical discipline by publishing stories of chloroform parties (and my personal favourite – a piece encouraging the use of chloroform as a handy way of dealing with dull people! Yikes!). This session saw the beginning of the snow, which was very exciting indeed!

Next up we were treated to a great lecture and workshop by Katy Price. The concept of the ‘implied reader’ I found especially interesting here and very applicable to my PhD work on medical journalism. We also enjoyed a good bit of detective work in trying to figure out what kind of magazine the ‘Death Rays and Moonshine’ piece was published in.
Lastly were the student presentations, taking in everything from the framing of HIV/AIDS to the past-time of volcano surfing (good work Jackie!).
A helter-skelter, enjoyable and exhausting day!

Having arrived super-early to St. Deiniol’s, I had ample opportunity to snoop around and check out the Gladstone memorabilia on show (highlights including the former Prime Minister’s mallet and shaving tools!). After much anticipation, the LitSciMed contingent arrived and the day was under way.

The opening lecture on ‘Empiricism and the Novel’ by Charlotte Sleigh was a great way to kick things off,  with many parallels being drawn between the birth of science and the rise of the novel. For me this session raised a whole host of interesting questions: What is empiricism? How has its meaning changed over time? Following Charlotte’s warnings about the political purposes it has been linked to, I am now on the look-out should empiricism raise its ugly head in my work on Victorian journalism!

Next up was our introduction to the Gladstone library by Mark Llewellyn, where we encountered the wonderfully named ‘GladCat’ system.  This got me thinking about the ways in which knowledge is stored and categorized, as well as about libraries as ‘temples of learning’ (something which would come up again on Day 5 in the John Rylands!).

Following some much-welcome grub, the student presentations began with talks by Louise, Aidan, Will, Abby and Paul. This was a great quick-fire way of getting familiar with everyone’s projects, and hearing about such varied and fascinating work provided a great way to round off the first day!