Invitée par Silvia Sebastiani (GEHM), Miruna Achim enseigne à l'Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana, à Mexico. Ses recherches portent sur l’histoire des sciences au Mexique, entre le XVI^e et le XIX^e siècle, et plus particulièrement sur l’histoire de la médecine, de l’astrologie, des musées et des collections. Elle s’intéresse à la construction d’objets scientifiques, aux types de technologies qui ont permis leur circulation et leur échange, ainsi qu’à leurs utilisations politiques et culturelles dans le monde transatlantique. Ses publications incluent Lagartijas medicinales : remedios americanos y debates científicos en la Ilustración (2008) ; Museos al detalle. Colecciones, antigüedades e historia natural (2014), co-édité avec Irina Podgorny ; Piedra, papel y tijera. Instrumentos en las ciencias en México (2018), co-édité avec Laura Cházaro et Nuria Valverde. Son dernier livre, From Idols to Antiquity: Forging the National Museum of Mexico, 1825-1867 (2017), reconstruit le difficile processus de développement du Museo Nacional de Mexico, dans les décennies tumultueuses qui ont suivi l'indépendance du Mexique.

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Conférences

Dans le cadre des « Débats du CAK », avec Miruna Achim autour de son ouvrage, From Idols to Antiquity. Forging the National Museum of Mexico (Lincoln, University of Nebraska Press, 2017)
Comment un musée émerge-t-il ?
Mercredi 20 novembre de 10h à 12h
Discutant.e.s : Pietro Corsi (University of Oxford, EHESS) et Mélanie Roustan (MNHN, PALOC)
Centre Alexandre-Koyré (Salle de séminaire, 5^e étage) 27 rue Damesme, 75013 Paris .
 

Dans le cadre du séminaire d'Antoine Lilti et Silvia Sebastiani, La curiosité des Lumières
Collecting ancient Mexico in the age of Enlightenment
Vendredi 22 novembre de 11h à 13h
EHESS (Salle AS1_08) - 54 boulevard Raspail 75006 Paris

Preconquest antiquities of the Americas first attracted the attention of scholars and aficionados in the sixteenth century, when featherworks, textiles, gold, silver, and jade objects began circulating on the other side of the Atlantic. It was not until the second half of the eighteenth century, however, that we can situate a growing antiquarian interest in the vestiges of the New World. This seminar reconstructs the scenes of antiquarian study and collecting in Mexico by asking a series of specific questions: Why did antiquities become objects of interest by the late-eighteenth century? How were they being classified, defined, and studied? What strategies and technologies for knowledge-making were being put to use in these studies? What kinds questions were being asked of preconquest antiquities, especially with regards to the contemporary debates on the natural and intellectual development of the New World. Chronologically, this seminar focuses on the years between the 1750s (when the first instructions for the study of American antiquities where put in place) to the mid 1810s (marking the publication and reception of Alexander von Humboldt’s writings on American antiquities).

Dans le cadre du séminaire d'Antoine Lilti et Silvia Sebastiani, La curiosité des Lumières
Natural knowledge and the making of the public sphere in late eighteenth-century Mexico
Vendredi 29 novembre de 11h à 13h
EHESS (Salle AS1_08) - 54 boulevard Raspail 75006 Paris

This session explores the scenes of natural history collecting in late eighteenth century Mexico City, by paying particular attention to the kinds of things that were being collected and displayed, and the kinds of knowledge that was being produced and debated around these objects. Collections, I argue, are part of wider economic and scientific policies adopted by the Spanish Crown in an attempt to inventory the riches and define the resources of the colonies and make the empire more profitable, in keeping with cameralist trends globally. At the same time, there is a decidedly local, urban dimension to collecting in Mexico, where collections acted as sites for new sociabilities and for the formation of a local public sphere. Ultimately, producing natural knowledge and debates about natural objects were never only about nature, but strategies of intervention and participation in urban policies and politics.

Lundi 9 décembre de18h à 20h
Les vitrines de l’humanité. Questions aux musées d’anthropologies
Présentation et discussion du numéro monographique de Passés Futurs (n°6, 2019).
Avec la participation de Miruna Achim (UNAM et professeure invitée à l’EHESS), Gaetano Ciarcia (CNRSE, IMAF), Pietro Corsi (EHESS/University of Oxford) et Rafael Mandressi (CNRS, CAK). La débat sera animé par Silvia Sebastiani (EHESS).
EHESS (Salle BS1_28 e BS1_05) - 54 boulevard Raspail 75006 Paris

Dans le cadre du séminaire d'Antonella Romano, Savoirs et productions du monde au XVIe siècle. Lieux, acteurs, échelles
Ils ne sont pas encore classiques : paper technologies and the construction of Mexican antiquity
Mercredi 11 décembre de 15h à 18h
Campus Condorcet (Salle 3.09) - Centre de colloques, Cours des Humanités 93300 Aubervilliers

By the mid 19th century, American antiquities were being avidly collected and studied in various centers of accumulation, from Mexico City, Lima, Campeche, and Cuzco, to Paris, London, and Copenhagen, often next to antiquities from other parts of the world. To many of their students – including Adrien Prévost de Longpérier, who opened and American Hall at the Louvre in 1850 --, they were bizarre and singular, “not yet classical,” that is, not recognizable as part of an established canon. This seminar examines the strategies by which Mexican antiquities became “classical.” Arguing that it was most often not the objects themselves, but their reproductions – as drawings, engravings, lithographs, molds, photographs, and fakes – that were being studied, I examine different technologies of reproduction, their makers, and their circulation between museums, academies, and private cabinets. Rather than passive supports for the representation of objects, different technologies shape specific ways of seeing and interpreting preconquest vestiges and incorporate intellectual, racial and cultural biases. As such, their study cannot be excluded from the history of antiquarianism and archaeology.
 

Acceuil et durée du séjour

• Invitée par Silvia Sebastiani

• 1 mois (Novembre-Décembre)