Chiara Thumiger / Angelika Messner
The circulatory system: dissection of the abdomen showing the large intestine, with the arteries and veins indicated in red and blue. Coloured lithograph by J. Maclise, 1841/1844
A visual project in comparative anatomy, sponsored by the Cluster of Excellence ROOTS
The circulatory system: dissection of the abdomen showing the large intestine, with the arteries and veins indicated in red and blue. Coloured lithograph by J. Maclise, 1841/1844
Conventionally, world histories of knowledge are crafted as an accumulative conglomeration of multiple regional histories. Nonetheless, a Eurocentric framework, unspoken but implied, has always shaped gaze and orientation in anthropological inquiries. The research-project ‘Comparative Guts’, generously sponsored by the Cluster of Excellence Roots (Subcluster Knowledge) at the CAU University in Kiel, is precisely aimed at overcoming Eurocentrism in placing different regions, times and strata of human cultural production alongside one another in an exercise of comparison.
Looking at different modalities of knowledge acquisition, representation and communication on a global scale, ‘Comparative Guts’ places its focus on knowledge deriving from skills, from experience, from the senses.
In our project, knowledge about the anatomy of the body as it emerges from the interplay between different actors and factors (people, countries and regions) is investigated through images. In particular, we wish to explore the inner landscape of the human body with attention to a specific case study, that of the viscera, especialy those concerned with the processing and digesting of food, the ‘guts’.
This approach will bring to the fore the issue of vision, the problems posed by imaging and reading images, and the degrees of technological mediation of knowledge across different contexts and traditions.
In practical terms, we wish to centre the images as immediate vehicle of anthropological information, while accompanying them with short texts to contextualise and explain the sources. Both elements – the choice of image, and the succinct texts – will be fundamental to allow a glimpse into different cultures while keeping the focus on this important part, or region of the body.