Does compression have a history?

Alongside a cognitive challenge of “too much to know,” information overload poses a physical challenge of “too much to store.” Indeed, the possibilities of “big data” today are predicated on technologies that compress data into ever “smaller” sizes. On the one hand, major libraries such as the NYPL, coping with spatial shortage, have increasingly emphasized the provision of digital resources – shifting physical collections off site, and in the process sparking heated debates with researchers. On the other hand, the possibilities of digital...

Race, Representation, and Museums Lecture Series

Christopher Dean, Emeritus Professor of Anatomy, Division of Biosciences and Professorial Research Associate, Department of Cell and Developmental Biology, University College London

In 1912, British paleontologist Arthur Smith Woodward and amateur antiquarian...

Race, Representation, and Museums Lecture Series

Lee D. Baker, Dean of Academic Affairs for Trinity College of Arts and Sciences, Associate Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education, Mrs. A. Hehmeyer Professor of Cultural Anthropology, Duke University

Frederic Ward Putnam, one of the Peabody Museum’s...

Race, Representation, and Museums Lecture Series

J. Lorand Matory, Lawrence Richardson Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Director, Sacred Arts of the Black Atlantic Project, Duke University

Since the early-modern encounter between African and European merchants on the Guinea Coast, the term “fetish...

Title: "When Universalisms Divide, or Brexit Through the Gift Shop: Shifting Ecologies of Enlightenment Museum Collections"