SPECIAL EVENT: Into the Panopticum: Spectacle and Education in Popular Museums of 19th Century Europe with Dr. Peter M. McIsaac, German and Museum Studies, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor

 

This April, we are beyond delighted to welcome Dr. Peter M. McIsaac, Associate Professor of German and Museum Studies at The University of Michigan, to Morbid Anatomy. McIssac wrote the introductory essay (read in this PDF) for our current House of Wax exhibition--on view through May 30 and curated by Ryan Matthew Cohn--which showcases rarely seen anatomical and ethnographic waxes from Castan's Berlin-based Panopticum which was open to the public from 1869-1922.

On April 5, McIssac will give an illustrated lecture on the history of panoptica, European museums popular from the 18th through the early 20th century that, like American Dime Museums, fall somewhere between aristocratic cabinets of curiosity and today's ideas of museums. Attendees will also be able to visit our current exhibition House of Wax at the end of the event.

Full details below; tickets can be purchased here. Hope very much to see you there!

Into the Panopticum: Spectacle and Education in Popular Museums of 19th Century Europe with Dr. Peter M. McIsaac, Associate Professor of German and Museum Studies at The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
Tuesday, April 5
Time: 7 pm
Admission: $8
Location: Morbid Anatomy Museum, 424 Third Avenue, 11215 Brooklyn NY
NOTE: *** Admission includes a visit to the Museum--currently displaying rare wax models from Castan's Panopticum in Berlin--after the talk.

Panoptica were popular throughout Europe from the 18th through the early 20th century. Like dime museums such as Barnums American Museum, these largely forgotten spaces fall somewhere between aristocratic cabinets of curiosity and todays ideas of museums. They would display for a popular audience anatomical and pathological waxworks, real human specimens, death masks of celebrities and murderers, ethnographic busts, Anatomical Venuses, waxes showing the effects of syphilis (still a fatal disease at this time) along with assorted curiosities such as elephant tusks, mummies, stuffed alligators, and monkey skeletons. They also presented live acts such as singers, dancers, ventriloquists, hunger artists, and even living freaks and ethnic rarities. Its spectacle hovered between the exotic and scientific pretense.

Tonight, join Dr. Peter M. McIsaac for an illustrated lecture about the rise and fall of the little known phenomenon of the panopticon in cultural context. The Museum--which is currently displaying rare wax models from Castan's Panopticum in Berlin, with explanatory texts written by Dr. Mc Isaac--will also be open after the talk.

Peter M. McIsaac is associate professor of German Studies and Museum Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His publications include Museums of the Mind: German Modernity and the Dynamics of Collecting and Exhibiting the German Past: Museums, Film, and Musealization. He is also currently writing a book-length manuscript on the "secret" German pre-history to Body Worlds, a contemporary exhibition of human corpses that has broken attendance records and generated controversy around the world. In 2005, he received the Richard K. Lublin Distinguished Teaching Award from Trinity College of Duke University. Before coming to Michigan, McIsaac served as the Director of the Canadian Centre for German and European Studies at York University.

Images, top to bottom:

1. Im Panopticum, Albert Heise, 1892: A painting of a panopticum in Berlin, perhaps Castan's
2. Installation shot of the Morbid Anatomy Museum current exhibition House of Wax
3. The wax atelier of E. E. Hammer, Munich, late 19th century. Courtesy of Valentin-Karlstadt-Musäum, München
4. Guidebook to Castan's Panopticum, 19th or early 20th century, sourced here