Figurations of Alterity: an Encounter with the Archive

In this work I ponder about the archive based on three images from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: the drawing of a monster from the Teratology collection of the Museo Nacional de México preserved today in the Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia; the photography of ani...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Frida Gorbach
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Milano University Press 2021-07-01
Series:Glocalism: Journal of Culture, Politics and Innovation
Subjects:
Online Access:https://ojs-unimi-test.4science.cloud/index.php/glocalism/article/view/20602
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1849761001417736192
author Frida Gorbach
author_facet Frida Gorbach
author_sort Frida Gorbach
collection DOAJ
description In this work I ponder about the archive based on three images from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: the drawing of a monster from the Teratology collection of the Museo Nacional de México preserved today in the Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia; the photography of animals that are part of what was the collection of the Museo de Historia Natural del Chopo and that today protects the Fototeca Nacional; and the copy of a drawing of a hysterical woman that is part of the iconography of the French hospital de la Salpêtrière and that was reproduced in Mexico in a scientific journal. With the perspective offered by the “archival turn”, these individual images speak about the procedures of classification, hierarchy and exclusion that organized the knowledge system. They also show three ways of articulating madness, the bestial and the primitive, three figures of the Other from the West, three paths that lead to the “Indian”, that descendant of the pre-Hispanic inhabitants of the American continent on whose erasure was erected the scientific normalizing discourse and the nation-state.
format Article
id doaj-art-e806056bf6a541b590a0d4bc0fd6081c
institution DOAJ
issn 2283-7949
language English
publishDate 2021-07-01
publisher Milano University Press
record_format Article
series Glocalism: Journal of Culture, Politics and Innovation
spelling doaj-art-e806056bf6a541b590a0d4bc0fd6081c2025-08-20T03:06:10ZengMilano University PressGlocalism: Journal of Culture, Politics and Innovation2283-79492021-07-012Figurations of Alterity: an Encounter with the ArchiveFrida Gorbach0Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana In this work I ponder about the archive based on three images from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: the drawing of a monster from the Teratology collection of the Museo Nacional de México preserved today in the Biblioteca Nacional de Antropología e Historia; the photography of animals that are part of what was the collection of the Museo de Historia Natural del Chopo and that today protects the Fototeca Nacional; and the copy of a drawing of a hysterical woman that is part of the iconography of the French hospital de la Salpêtrière and that was reproduced in Mexico in a scientific journal. With the perspective offered by the “archival turn”, these individual images speak about the procedures of classification, hierarchy and exclusion that organized the knowledge system. They also show three ways of articulating madness, the bestial and the primitive, three figures of the Other from the West, three paths that lead to the “Indian”, that descendant of the pre-Hispanic inhabitants of the American continent on whose erasure was erected the scientific normalizing discourse and the nation-state. https://ojs-unimi-test.4science.cloud/index.php/glocalism/article/view/20602archivemonsterswomenanimalsprimitive
spellingShingle Frida Gorbach
Figurations of Alterity: an Encounter with the Archive
Glocalism: Journal of Culture, Politics and Innovation
archive
monsters
women
animals
primitive
title Figurations of Alterity: an Encounter with the Archive
title_full Figurations of Alterity: an Encounter with the Archive
title_fullStr Figurations of Alterity: an Encounter with the Archive
title_full_unstemmed Figurations of Alterity: an Encounter with the Archive
title_short Figurations of Alterity: an Encounter with the Archive
title_sort figurations of alterity an encounter with the archive
topic archive
monsters
women
animals
primitive
url https://ojs-unimi-test.4science.cloud/index.php/glocalism/article/view/20602
work_keys_str_mv AT fridagorbach figurationsofalterityanencounterwiththearchive