Tessera

We are online for our conference Medicine, Museum and Science Communication in the Nineteenth Century, with the VP of @incsa.bsky.social kicking off the day

A highlight of my trip to Edinburgh for #ESHS-HSS was seeing Phoebe Anna Traquair’s amazing needle work. Absolute goals. I’ve got so much to learn

The party doesn't end in Edinburgh #ESHS-HSS! Join us in Copenhagen, either online or in-person, on Monday 20 July for the conference "Medicine, Museums, and Science Communication in the Nineteenth-Century". We have a wonderful program, and registration is free. eventsignup.ku.dk/medicinemuse...

Conference Program: 20 July 2026

Welcome and Opening Remarks
09:00-9:20

Nanna Kaalund and Cora Salkovskis, “Welcome and opening remarks”, (Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen)

Efram Sera-Shriar, “Welcome from INCSA”, (Vice-President of INCSA, University of Copenhagen)

Session 1: Medicine, Mobility, and the Making of Knowledge Across Borders
Chair: Adam Bencard (University of Copenhagen)
09:20–10:40

Sorin Grigoruță (A. D. Xenopol Institute of History / New Europe College), “Physicians, Transfer of Knowledge and the Beginnings of the First Museum in the Romanian Extra-Carpathian Space”

Alicja Urbanik-Kopeć (Institute for the History of Science, Polish Academy of Sciences), “Teodora Krajewska – Community, Care, Teaching and the “‘Other’”

Lucy Hyde (University of Bristol), “The Entanglement of Medicine, Museums, and Public Communication in the Case of John Horwood”

Coffee Break: 10:40–11:00

Session 2: Domesticating Medicine: Gender and Popular Health Cultures
Chair: Efram Sera-Shriar (University of Copenhagen)
11:00–12:25

Shatavisha Mustafi (Nayanta University) and Sayan Das (Jawaharlal Nehru University), “Re-visualising Bodies | Re-rooting Self: Medical Advertisements and the Imagination of the Modern Self in Nineteenth-Century Bengal”

Carlo Bovolo (Società di Studi Valdes), “Healing Bodies, Educating Souls: The Popularization of Medicine in Italian Protestant Youth Periodicals”

Doel Chakraborty (Indian Institute of Technology Madras), “Healing at Home: Vernacular Medical Print and the Circulation of Gynaecological Knowledge in Colonial Bengal

Lunch 12:25–13:20

Session 3: Bodies on Display: Museums, Ethics, and Spectacle
Chair: Kaija-Liisa Koovit (University of Copenhagen)
13:20–14:45

Nanna Kaalund (University of Copenhagen), “From Display to Diagnosis: Elastic Bodies and the Making of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome”

Cora Salkovskis (University of Copenhagen), “‘Morbid Appetites’: Credibility, Selfhood, and the Girls Who ‘Swallowed’ Needles in The Lancet, 1850–1911”

Rebecka Klette (Birkbeck, University of London), “Genealogical Crossroads: Family History Methodologies and Research Ethics in the Case of the Murderer Philipsen”

Charlotte White (Newcastle University), “Preserve, Protect, Punish: Reevaluating Public Health and Public History through the Use of Tuberculosis Posters”

Coffee Break 14:45–15:00

Session 4: Visualising Medicine: Art, Objects, and the Communication of the Body
Chair: Tine Friis (University of Copenhagen)
15:00–16:00

Allison Morehead (Queen's University) and Phil Loring (National Medical Museum, Teknisk Museum), “Family Medicine: Visualizing and Materializing Nineteenth-Century Medicine in the Early Work of Edvard Munch”

Jessica M. Dandona (Minneapolis College of Art and Design), “Maison Tramond's Wax Models of the Female Body: Anatomical Venus or Memento Mori?”

Keynote Lecture
Chair: Cora Salkovskis (University of Copenhagen)
16:00–17:00

Katherine Ott (Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History) and Lilla Vekerdy (Smithsonian Libraries and Archives), “Understanding 19th Century Embodiment Through Medical Material Culture”

I can really recommend the NMS special exhibit ‘Giants’, it’s very well done #ESHS-HSS

Photograph of the entrance to the exhibit Giants

Nanna Kaalund @nannaklk.bsky.social · 7mo ago

It’s wonderful to be in Edinburgh for #ESHS-HSS The amount of sessions is a bit overwhelming, it’ll be difficult to decide which to attend!

Photo of a fountain with a view of Edinburgh castle in the background

I’m back! Because I just remembered this ridiculous thing, and I don’t think I ever shared it. So almost 15 years ago we went on our honey moon to Chicago. We were super tired and hungry, and went into the first restaurant we saw - it looked like a lovely Scottish pub. Wonderful!

Advances in Nineteenth-Century Research Journal @advancesjournal.bsky.social · last yr.

Have you heard or seen any recordings inspired by/from the 19th century recently? A period film or TV series? A music album? A documentary or biopic? A streamed 19th c. theatre piece? A podcast? We're looking to publish recordings reviews - email hannah.scott at ncl. ac. uk for more info! 📃

Nanna Kaalund @nannaklk.bsky.social · last yr.

We have a brand new exhibit ‘Teeth’ at the Medical Museion, University of Copenhagen. It explores the curious connections between the mouth and the rest of the body.

Post nicht verfügbar.

CNCSI @cncsi.bsky.social · 2y ago

🦠 Contagion and Contamination in the Nineteenth Century, a free and online one-day interdisciplinary workshop. Thursday 1 May, 9.00am – 5.00pm (Central European Time). For the full program and to register for the workshop, visit: cn-csi.com/event/contag...

It is great to have Greg Radick visit Copenhagen for the Metabolism Day, where he is giving a talk on “Mendel’s Peas” - really highlighting the value of the history of science and medicine #md25

Photograph of stage showing three screens, including with the title of Greg’s talk “Mensel’s Peas as Exemplar or Exception?”

We all know that mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell, but what about “metabolism keeps mitochondria in leash”? Fascinating start to Metabolism Day #md25

Photograph of the presenter stage at metabolism day, with they view of screens that project summary of research

Trump’s whole ‘let’s buy Greenland’ thing is an obvious gimmick, *but* the danish government really ought to take the fact seriously that it might be rather attractive for Greenland to align itself with other nations

My new toxic personality trait is to log into Facebook and block every single advertisement/sponsored post in my feed, rather than just installing an ad blocker… 🤡😅

Visited the parents’ cottage, and was treated to a cold, wet, and windy (but prettily moonlit) walk on the beach. I’m not sure when we’ve last had any proper sunlight ☁️🌕☁️

Photo of beach, where the ocean is to the right hand side and the coast is to the left. The coastline is rugged with lots of wilted foliage. The sky is dark and you can see the moon

My kiddo learned about adoption and rainbow families ages ago - but we only just realised that the main point ‘families comes in all shapes’ somehow got confused, when he asked if we could please buy a little brother at the baby shop for Xmas…

Nuuk has a new international airport! When I visited a few years ago I had a layover in Kangerlussuaq before flying to Nuuk - that meant I was able to book a guided tour to the inland ice. The new airport is sure to change the tourist landscape in many ways. Exciting!

Photo of a hand holding a piece of ice that looks like a bird. In the background you can see partially melted ice sheet

Nanna Kaalund@nannaklk.bsky.social · 2y ago

It was a pleasure to participate in the Metabolism in Action, where we contributed with a hands-on object based learning session using a small timekeeper which was used by danish medical caregivers in the 1950s and 60s.

Photograph of the object that was used in an object based learning session. The object is a timekeeper that was used by healthcare practitioners in the 1950s and 60s

Photograph of a large screen with a PowerPoint slide. The slide has the title ‘an insight into medical musion’s object based learning work’

I’m at the gorgeous Favrholm campus for the Metabolism In Action conference (a Novo Nordisk Foundation Science Cluster event). The Medical Museion is contributing with an object learning session later today

Photograph of the front entrance to Favrholm campus, it’s an only white building with thatched roof and walkway towards the entrance

I was recently in Bengaluru, India, where I met with the amazing folks at the Science Gallery Bengaluru, the Museum of Art and Photography, NIMHANS and BIC (and many more!).

Photo of a woman petting a cow, while standing in the middle of a side street in Bengaluru. There’s also a green and yellow tuk tuk to the side.

Some 14 years ago, I worked the Aarhus University booth at the Bright Green expo during COP15 in Copenhagen. Everyone seemed so full of hope and excitement - as if the climate summit was actually going to change things. Now with COP28 under way it feels more like stalling for time we never had.

My thermal running tights were no match for the icy wind today - I think I’ll have to shelve my ocean running route until spring… But it sure is pretty out! ❄️

I did something fun today, and participated in my karate club’s tournament. To my surprise, I placed 3rd in the beginner category! And now I’m so sore I think I’ll have to stay in bed until next weekend

My kiddo complained that his primary teacher, a woman in her 50s, didn’t know Street Fighter, so I said maybe some of the younger TA’s knew the game. He responded “Yeah. My teacher is really old, she is like 25” 😁

I just discovered that a fantasy author I really like was an original Archive Of Our Own writer, and wrote (pretty steamy) HP/ fanfic. So much of that old fanfic was better than the canon, it’s been such fun to re-read a few of them

Halloween is really taking off in Denmark, and has now surpassed the old trick or treating holiday ‘fastelavn’ (carnival), according to grocery store surveys. When I was a kid, Halloween was a niche holiday - it’s funny how things change! I love it, and our neighbourhood goes all out!

Photo of a Halloween decoration. It looks like someone got squished in a car garage door, kinda like in the movie Scream

Photo of a Halloween decoration. It’s a full size skeleton of an adult human, cradling a giant pumpkin

I’m really looking excited about the Monsters in the 19th Century online workshop, which is happening online right now! It’s co-hosted by CNCSI and the Dark Arts Research Group at Copenhagen Uni cn-csi.com/event/monste...

I had the opportunity to visit the Humboldt Forum in Berlin recently. Parts of the ethnological exhibitions have been redone/made with the aim of decolonialism as methodological practice, and it was thought provoking to see the contrast to the ‘traditionally’ curated sections.

Photo from the Humboldt Forum. Object description at museum reads “Narrative reliefs of Angkor Wat (plaster casts) Cambodia, Angkor Wat 12th c. (original), 1983-1984 (cast) plaster cast produced from paper moulds from 1898”

Alt text: THE MUSEUM AS A PLACE OF KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION

Museums are reflections of the colonial and racist world order of the nineteenth century. Objects of European "art" and "history" were collected in specific museums. In contrast, art and cultural objects from Asia, Africa, the Americas, Oceania and Australia were degraded to "ethnographica" and their societies of origin discredited as "with- out art" and "without history".

The Königliches Museum für Völkerkunde (Royal Museum for

Ethnology), which opened in 1886, sought to acquire and classify as many artefacts as possible. To this end, museum employees established networks with museums all over the world and maintained special relationships with members of the military, settlers, missio- naries and scientists in the colonised regions. A Federal Council (Bundesrat) resolution of 1889 designated the museum as the central "collection point" for "ethnographic objects" from the colonies. The Berlin ethnologists even condoned the use