‘There is not one single thing that resembles this one.’ Writing human monsters in late eighteenth-century Spain
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.5324/njsts.v2i1.2138Abstract
The article discusses how a malformed set of twins turned into a museum object at the late eighteenth-century el Real Gabinete de Historia Natural in Madrid. Foregrounding the practices through which the twins transformed, it is made clear how museum objects result from de-centered processes. Two different enactments are discussed. The first encompasses the process by which the malformed set of twins transformed into a specimen of interest to the learned. The second enactment addresses how the twins were transported to Madrid through practices of charity. These two versions differed radically, yet they were intimately intertwined, and dependent upon one another.
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