In collaboration with UCL, Elaine’s AHRC-funded doctoral project will look at how models and casts in natural history and the natural sciences are highly contextual “knowledge objects” - carriers and catalysts of knowledge, but also of identities, relationships and status. Being often perceived as purely utilitarian, they pose important questions about authenticity, objectivity and the objectification of nature.
The main focus will be on rediscovering and recording the models and casts at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, and on (re-)establishing their contexts, especially by comparing them with their counterparts in university collections in Germany (where many of the models were produced).
