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Journal article
Appropriate and appropriated sites for elephants: a case study of the making of museum objects
Through a case study of the museum career of a mounted specimen of African elephant, the nature of “museum objects” and sites in which they engage in the construction of meaning are examined. The paper tracks a series of representations through a museum and explores how this representative of the...Swinney, Geoffrey N
material culture, natural museology, remediation, translation, meta-representation, and afterlife
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Journal article
Projecting the Museum: moving images in, and of, Scotland's national museum
The century-long engagement of museums with the moving image is examined through a case study of its deployment by National Museums Scotland (inclusive of its predecessor organisations the Royal Scottish Museum and the Royal Museum of Scotland). The study engages the academic genres of film studies and museum studies to...Swinney, Geoffrey N
Cinema, television, video, film, Royal Scottish Museum, National Museums Scotland, and historical geography
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Book chapter
The art and science of replication. Copies and copying in the multi-disciplinary museum
Few institutions are warier of copies than museums. Few fields of knowledge are more prone to denounce copies as fake than the heritage field. Few discourses are as concerned with authenticity, aura, originals and provenance as those concerning exhibiting and collecting. So why is it that these are institutions, fields...Alberti, S J M M ; Blackwell, Alice ; Davidson, Peter ; Goldberg, D Martin ; Swinney, Geoffrey N
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1999
Journal article
A long-finned specimen of Beryx decadactylus caught in the North-eastern Atlantic of Rockall
A long-finned specimen of Beryx decadactylus from of Rockall is reported and the Northeastern Atlantic persistence of juvenile characters in subadult and adult fish is discussed.Swinney, Geoffrey N ; Holmes, M ; Blackadder, J S ; Pye, Sankurie E
atypical specimen, Beryx decadactylus, distribution records, and juvenile characters
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2007
Journal article
The Scottish National Antarctic Expedition (1902-04) and the founding of Base Orcadas
The history of the establishment of the scientific research station on Laurie Island, South Orkney Islands, is recounted. Its founding by the Scottish National Antarctic (Scotia) Expedition (1902-04) and the subsequent operation by Argentina resulted in it becoming the first all-year-round permanently-staffed research facility in Antarctica. The networks of government...Swinney, Geoffrey N
National Rivalry, South Orkney Islands, Antarctic Science , and History
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2008
Journal article
Enchanted invertebrates: Blaschka models and other simulacra in National Museums Scotland
This paper examines the role of natural history models in museum displays in the second half of the nineteenth century and in the early decades of the twentieth century. In particular it considers the 257 Blaschka models of invertebrate animals and some of the other natural history models acquired by...Swinney, Geoffrey N
invertebrates, glass models , museum display, and educational models
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2010
Journal article
Edward Forbes (1815-1854) and the exhibition of natural order in Edinburgh
The roles, affordances and social agency of natural history museums are discussed in relation to the writings of Edward Forbes. These signal a motivation, in the mid-nineteenth-century, to naturalize the established social order through the systematic arrangement and display of natural history specimens. The perceived importance of the embodied messages...Swinney, Geoffrey N
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2010
Journal article
Robert Jameson (1774-1854) and the concept of a 'public museum'
Attention is drawn to Robert Jameson’s distinction between “the public” and “the working classes” in relation to the audience for the Natural History Museum of the College (later the University of) Edinburgh. This distinction is discussed, together with specific usage of the related term “closed”, in the context of recent...Swinney, Geoffrey N