{"product_id":"things-that-talk-object-lessons-from-art-and-science-9781890951443","title":"Things That Talk: Object Lessons from Art and Science","description":"\u003cp\u003eImagine a world without things. There would be nothing to describe, explain, remark on, interpret, or complain about. Without things, we would, in short, stop speaking; we would become as mute as objects are alleged to be. In nine original essays, internationally renowned historians of art and of science seek to understand how objects become charged with significance without losing their gritty materiality. \u003ci\u003eThings That Talk\u003c\/i\u003e aims to escape the opposition between positivist facts and cultural readings that bifurcates the current historiography of both art and science. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eConfronting this impasse from an interdisciplinary perspective, each author singles out one object for close attention: a Bosch drawing, the freestanding column, a Prussian island, soap bubbles, early photographs, glass flowers, Rorschach blots, newspaper clippings, paintings by Jackson Pollock. Each object is revealed to be a node around which meanings accrete thickly. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eBut not just any meanings: what these things are made of and how they are made shape what they can mean. Neither the pure texts of semiotics nor the brute objects of positivism, these things are saturated with cultural significance. Things become talkative when they fuse matter and meaning; they lapse into speechlessness when their matter and meanings no longer mesh. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEach of the nine evocative objects examined in this book had its historical moment, when the match of this thing to that thought seemed irresistible. At such junctures, certain things become objects of fascination, association, and endless consideration. \u003ci\u003eThings That Talk\u003c\/i\u003e fleetingly realizes the dream of a perfect language, in which words and world merge. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eEssays by Lorraine Daston, Peter Galison, Anke te Heesen, Caroline A. Jones, Joseph Leo Koerner, Antoine Picon, Simon Schaffer, Joel Snyder, and M. Norton and Elaine M. Wise.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eDaston, Lorraine:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - Lorraine Daston is Director at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Berlin and Visiting Professor in the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. She is the coauthor (with Katharine Park) of \u003ci\u003eWonders and the Order of Nature, 1150-1750\u003c\/i\u003e and (with Peter Galison) \u003ci\u003eObjectivity\u003c\/i\u003e and the editor of \u003ci\u003eThings that Talk: Object Lessons from Art and Science\u003c\/i\u003e, all three published by Zone Books.","brand":"Zone Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50650631438610,"sku":"9781890951443","price":20.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_1fa4c974-e375-4412-980f-31dd3cb309eb.jpg?v=1733295426","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/things-that-talk-object-lessons-from-art-and-science-9781890951443","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}