Skip to content Skip to navigation
University of Warwick
  • Study
  • |
  • Research
  • |
  • Business
  • |
  • Alumni
  • |
  • News
  • |
  • About

University of Warwick
Publications service & WRAP

Highlight your research

  • WRAP
    • Home
    • Search WRAP
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse WRAP by Year
    • Browse WRAP by Subject
    • Browse WRAP by Department
    • Browse WRAP by Funder
    • Browse Theses by Department
  • Publications Service
    • Home
    • Search Publications Service
    • Browse by Warwick Author
    • Browse Publications service by Year
    • Browse Publications service by Subject
    • Browse Publications service by Department
    • Browse Publications service by Funder
  • Help & Advice
University of Warwick

The Library

  • Login
  • Admin

Visual objects and universal meanings : AIDS posters and the politics of globalisation and history

Tools
- Tools
+ Tools

Stein, Claudia and Cooter, Roger (2011) Visual objects and universal meanings : AIDS posters and the politics of globalisation and history. Medical History, Vol.55 (No.1). pp. 85-108. doi:10.1017/S0025727300006062 ISSN 0025-7273.

[img]
Preview
PDF
WRAP_Stein_medhis5501-06-085.pdf - Requires a PDF viewer.

Download (459Kb)
Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0025727300006062

Request Changes to record.

Abstract

Drawing on recent visual and spatial turns in history writing, this paper considers AIDS posters from the perspective of their museum ‘afterlife’ as collected material objects. Museum spaces serve changing political and epistemological projects, and the visual objects they house are not immune from them. A recent globally themed exhibition of AIDS posters at an arts and crafts museum in Hamburg is cited in illustration. The exhibition also serves to draw attention to institutional continuities in collecting agendas. Revealed, contrary to postmodernist expectations, is how today’s application of aesthetic display for the purpose of making ‘global connections’ does not radically break with the virtues and morals attached to the visual at the end of the nineteenth century. The historicisation of such objects needs to take into account this complicated mix of change and continuity in aesthetic
concepts and political inscriptions. Otherwise, historians fall prey to seductive aesthetics without being aware of the politics of them. This article submits that aesthetics is politics.

Item Type: Journal Article
Subjects: A General Works > AM Museums (General). Collectors and collecting (General)
R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine
Divisions: Faculty of Arts > History
Faculty of Arts > History > Centre for the History of Medicine
Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): AIDS (Disease) -- Posters -- Exhibitions, Public health posters, Museum exhibits, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe Hamburg
Journal or Publication Title: Medical History
Publisher: Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at UCL
ISSN: 0025-7273
Official Date: January 2011
Dates:
DateEvent
January 2011Published
Volume: Vol.55
Number: No.1
Page Range: pp. 85-108
DOI: 10.1017/S0025727300006062
Status: Peer Reviewed
Publication Status: Published
Access rights to Published version: Open Access (Creative Commons)
Funder: Wellcome Trust (London, England)
Version or Related Resource: Cooter, R. and Stein, C. (2010). Visual things and universal meanings : AIDS posters, the politics of globalisation and history. 15th biannual conference of the European Association of Museums for the History of Medical Sciences : Contemporary medical science and technology as a challenge to museums, 16-18th September.
Related URLs:
  • Related item in WRAP

Data sourced from Thomson Reuters' Web of Knowledge

Request changes or add full text files to a record

Repository staff actions (login required)

View Item View Item

Downloads

Downloads per month over past year

View more statistics

twitter

Email us: wrap@warwick.ac.uk
Contact Details
About Us