Mirjam Brusius
Biographic Data
| ID | 313857 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Mirjam Brusius |
| GIVEN NAMES | Mirjam |
| FAMILY NAME | Brusius |
| SIGNATURE | BRUSIUS M |
| AFFILIATIONS | Max Planck Society |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2580-4083 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 4 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 9 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Counter-archives as heritage justice: Photography, invisible labor and peopled ruins
This article critically engages with photographs, the institutions that archive and curate them, and the uses to which they are put in the work of heritage preservation, with particular attention paid to the ways in which these have been mobilized in Middle Eastern heritage debates. Photographs, often depicting uninhabited rather than populated heritage landscapes, in effect weaponize heritage preservation, ignoring the fact that individuals and …
Histories of the World in One Object: Itineraries, Islam and Indices
When Jules Verne published his adventure novel, Around the World in Eighty Days in 1873, little did he know that the title would galvanize a whole new way of constructing the world. Perhaps the wit
Introduction—What is Preservation
Tangible “heritage” (artifacts, buildings, and sites) has always played key roles in identity and nation-building in the Middle East. As countries in the Middle East face unprecedented disorder and violence we lack more nuanced answers to what preservation was, is, and what it can be in the future. This roundtable—initiated as a session at the Middle East Studies Association's annual meeting in 2016—offers a much-needed perspective and critical v…
Hitting two birds with one stone: An afterword on archeology and the history of science
This afterword comments on the articles gathered together in this special section of History of Science ("Disassembling Archaeology, Reassembling the Modern World"). Criticizing the consistent lack of institutional infrastructure for histories of archaeology in the history of science, the piece argues that scholars should recognize the commonality of archaeology's practices with those of the nineteenth and twentieth century field sciences that ha…
The Field in the Museum: Puzzling Out Babylon in Berlin
Can objects be data? Under what conditions do they become data? Looking at the Prussian-led excavations in Babylon around 1900, this essay will investigate processes of knowledge production in relation to archaeological objects between their excavation and their incorporation in museum collections. It will focus on the nature of the connection between data and the physical objects they represent. How much data does an object yield when it is “fou…
Photography’s Fits and Starts: The Search for Antiquity and its Image in Victorian Britain
This article investigates the relationship between ancient objects and their visual depiction in British archaeological expeditions in the Middle East in the mid-nineteenth century. The article focuses on the exploration of Ancient Mesopotamia initiated by the British adventurer Austen Henry Layard. Modern scholarship on Layard’s excavations and their reception in Europe has mostly presented them as well-organised, purposive, and logical enterpri…
Towards a History of Preservation Practices: Archaeology, Heritage, and the History of Science
My roundtable contribution inevitably starts with a critique of the field the scholarly utility of which we as contributors wish to defend. The study of the antique sciences (including the history of archaeology and heritage) still has marginal standing in science studies. So does the Middle East as a geographical region, which until recently enjoyed little scholarly interest in the field. The persistent Eurocentric research agenda of science stu…
Le Tigre, le Louvre et l’échange de connaissances archéologiques visuelles entre la France et la Grande-Bretagne aux alentours de 1850
When in the mid 1850s Assyrian sculptures excavated by a French delegation got lost in the river Tigris all what remained was a set of drawings that the London artist William Boutcher had made during a British expedition in Mesopotamia. In return, the French were in the possession of photographs of fragments from Nineveh that were lost by the British. This essay will re-examine British-Franco relations in the history of archaeology in Mesopotamia…
Impreciseness in Julia Margaret Cameron's Portrait Photographs
Julia Margaret Cameron developed her approach to focus in her portraits of the 1860s, when photographic rules and terminology had just begun to be established. Cameron's notion of focus has been discussed largely from the perspective of whether her photographic style was deliberate. This article approaches her work by denying this dichotomy. It argues that Cameron's treatment of focus implies a critique of the photographic image, for it undermine…
Hitting two birds with one stone: An afterword on archeology and the history of science
This afterword comments on the articles gathered together in this special section of History of Science ("Disassembling Archaeology, Reassembling the Modern World"). Criticizing the consistent lack of institutional infrastructure for histories of archaeology in the history of science, the piece argues that scholars should recognize the commonality of archaeology's practices with those of the nineteenth and twentieth century field sciences that ha…
Towards a History of Preservation Practices: Archaeology, Heritage, and the History of Science
My roundtable contribution inevitably starts with a critique of the field the scholarly utility of which we as contributors wish to defend. The study of the antique sciences (including the history of archaeology and heritage) still has marginal standing in science studies. So does the Middle East as a geographical region, which until recently enjoyed little scholarly interest in the field. The persistent Eurocentric research agenda of science stu…
Impreciseness in Julia Margaret Cameron's Portrait Photographs
Julia Margaret Cameron developed her approach to focus in her portraits of the 1860s, when photographic rules and terminology had just begun to be established. Cameron's notion of focus has been discussed largely from the perspective of whether her photographic style was deliberate. This article approaches her work by denying this dichotomy. It argues that Cameron's treatment of focus implies a critique of the photographic image, for it undermine…
Le Tigre, le Louvre et l’échange de connaissances archéologiques visuelles entre la France et la Grande-Bretagne aux alentours de 1850
When in the mid 1850s Assyrian sculptures excavated by a French delegation got lost in the river Tigris all what remained was a set of drawings that the London artist William Boutcher had made during a British expedition in Mesopotamia. In return, the French were in the possession of photographs of fragments from Nineveh that were lost by the British. This essay will re-examine British-Franco relations in the history of archaeology in Mesopotamia…
Towards a History of Preservation Practices: Archaeology, Heritage, and the History of Science
My roundtable contribution inevitably starts with a critique of the field the scholarly utility of which we as contributors wish to defend. The study of the antique sciences (including the history of archaeology and heritage) still has marginal standing in science studies. So does the Middle East as a geographical region, which until recently enjoyed little scholarly interest in the field. The persistent Eurocentric research agenda of science stu…
Photography’s Fits and Starts: The Search for Antiquity and its Image in Victorian Britain
This article investigates the relationship between ancient objects and their visual depiction in British archaeological expeditions in the Middle East in the mid-nineteenth century. The article focuses on the exploration of Ancient Mesopotamia initiated by the British adventurer Austen Henry Layard. Modern scholarship on Layard’s excavations and their reception in Europe has mostly presented them as well-organised, purposive, and logical enterpri…
Introduction—What is Preservation
Tangible “heritage” (artifacts, buildings, and sites) has always played key roles in identity and nation-building in the Middle East. As countries in the Middle East face unprecedented disorder and violence we lack more nuanced answers to what preservation was, is, and what it can be in the future. This roundtable—initiated as a session at the Middle East Studies Association's annual meeting in 2016—offers a much-needed perspective and critical v…
Hitting two birds with one stone: An afterword on archeology and the history of science
This afterword comments on the articles gathered together in this special section of History of Science ("Disassembling Archaeology, Reassembling the Modern World"). Criticizing the consistent lack of institutional infrastructure for histories of archaeology in the history of science, the piece argues that scholars should recognize the commonality of archaeology's practices with those of the nineteenth and twentieth century field sciences that ha…
The Field in the Museum: Puzzling Out Babylon in Berlin
Can objects be data? Under what conditions do they become data? Looking at the Prussian-led excavations in Babylon around 1900, this essay will investigate processes of knowledge production in relation to archaeological objects between their excavation and their incorporation in museum collections. It will focus on the nature of the connection between data and the physical objects they represent. How much data does an object yield when it is “fou…
Histories of the World in One Object: Itineraries, Islam and Indices
When Jules Verne published his adventure novel, Around the World in Eighty Days in 1873, little did he know that the title would galvanize a whole new way of constructing the world. Perhaps the wit
Counter-archives as heritage justice: Photography, invisible labor and peopled ruins
This article critically engages with photographs, the institutions that archive and curate them, and the uses to which they are put in the work of heritage preservation, with particular attention paid to the ways in which these have been mobilized in Middle Eastern heritage debates. Photographs, often depicting uninhabited rather than populated heritage landscapes, in effect weaponize heritage preservation, ignoring the fact that individuals and …
Art (7 works) · History (7 works) · Archaeological Research and Protection (6 works) · Archaeology (6 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Art history (4 works) · Literature (4 works) · Visual arts (4 works) · Aesthetics (3 works)