{"id":163177,"date":"2024-01-18T12:19:34","date_gmt":"2024-01-18T11:19:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/?p=163177"},"modified":"2025-12-19T11:27:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-19T10:27:08","slug":"this-book-filled-with-fascinating-images-inspired-charlotte-bruns-while-she-was-working-on-her-phd-for-which-she-received-several-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.erasmusmagazine.nl\/en\/2024\/01\/18\/this-book-filled-with-fascinating-images-inspired-charlotte-bruns-while-she-was-working-on-her-phd-for-which-she-received-several-awards\/","title":{"rendered":"This book filled with fascinating images inspired Charlotte Bruns while she was working on her PhD (for which she received several awards)"},"content":{"rendered":"

A thickly-padded book filled with colourful pictures \u2013 how useful is that to a scientist? As it turns out, very. Researcher and lecturer Charlotte Bruns can relate. The book Objectivity<\/em>, which uses historical images to show that the concept of objectivity is constantly changing, helped Bruns look at images through a sociological lens as well as write an award-winning dissertation.<\/p>\n

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\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tLeroy Verbeet<\/a>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>

Browsing the university library at Universit\u00e4t Leipzig, the choice before Charlotte Bruns was an easy one. As a PhD student, she enjoyed working in the library, preferring to trawl the library for suitable books for her research \u2018the old-fashioned way\u2019. One black book with white waves on the cover stood out in the history of science section: Objectivity<\/em>, by historians Lorraine Daston and Peter Galison. After flicking through it momentarily, she took it with her and a German copy has graced her bookcase at home for some time.<\/p>\n

The title, the black cover and the thickness of the book (over five hundred pages) give little cause to expect anything colourful. However, those who read the book immediately understand why Bruns, who has been a researcher and lecturer at Erasmus University Rotterdam since March last year, took it home with her. The publication is filled with fascinating drawings and photographs from old scientific books and atlases. Using these images, the authors demonstrate that the meaning of objectivity within science always depends on social, historical and technical context and therefore is constantly changing.<\/p>\n\t

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Favourite genre: Classics and historical non-fiction.<\/p>\n

Motivation: Immersing yourself in a good story and discovering new perspectives.<\/p>\n

Number of books per year: About twenty.<\/p>\n

Last book read: Dancing on Ropes<\/a><\/em> by Anna Aslanyan. \u201cA great book on the role of translation in cultural and social contexts, including a lot of examples of historical misconceptions.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\t<\/div>\n

Changing meanings<\/h2>
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A jellyfish drawn by Ernst Haeckel in 1904<\/span><\/p>

\n\t\n\n<\/svg>\n<\/span>\n\tImage by:<\/span>\n\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tErnst Haeckel<\/span>\t\t\t\t\t<\/span>\n\t<\/p>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>

Take one of Bruns\u2019 favourite images from the book: Kunstformen der Natur<\/em> (1904) by the scientist and artist Ernst Haeckel. Bruns calls the illustration of different types of jellyfish \u2018a feast for the eyes\u2019. \u201cIn the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, animals and plants were depicted symmetrically and without \u2018deviation\u2019, as if nature were perfect. Scientists only wanted to depict the typical, essential aspects of a plant or animal. As a result, objectivity in this era was synonymous with an idealised form of nature.\u201d<\/p>\n

We need only cast our gaze around vintage and charity shops to see that we no longer consider such illustrations \u2013 which were always drawn by artists \u2013 to be objective and scientific. Drawings are routinely taken from old science books to be copied and sold as posters and postcards. Bruns: \u201cWe now regard these drawings as \u2018artsy\u2019 and use them as decoration.\u201d<\/p>\n

This novel meaning is a result of circumstances changing over the years. With the advent of the camera in the nineteenth century, the meaning of objectivity changed into: do not idealise nature, but let it speak for itself through photographs. This then became the dominant notion in the scientific community. Partly due to technological developments, nature is nowadays often depicted in an almost unrecognisable way, meaning that the visualisation needs to be explained by an expert (like in the case of x-ray images, for example).<\/p>\n\n\t

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Read more<\/h2>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t