Return to search

The contaminated library

The contaminated book as a cultural asset is presented from three perspectives: philosophy, microbiology and cultural studies including medieval studies. The prejudice of the microbe as the enemy of the collection is questioned. Instead, the microbe is brought to the fore and made contextually visible as a book-biographical sign: traces on the book, including microbial ones, can bear witness to fire, flood, evacuation, and historical epidemics. For this witnessing, different readings of 'world' and of 'dead/living' must be considered, working toward a theory of things. It is based on studies of objects in medieval anthologies in the holdings of the Leipzig University Library, which have also been studied using microbiological and molecular biological methods at the DSMZ-German Collection of Microorganisms and Cell Cultures in Braunschweig. For the determination of the book biographies, both collections form mutual references. A new readability of the 'world as a book' is shown, which is made readable through its DNA, but also through its cultivation needs. With the idea of the book as habitat, a new view of the relationship between cultural property and microbe is opened - against destructive contamination towards the microbe as innovation potential for collections.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:86921
Date15 September 2023
CreatorsKarafyllis, Nicole C., Overmann, Jörg, Schneider, Ulrich Johannes, Mackert, Christoph
ContributorsAbbey, Chris
PublisherUniversität Leipzig
Source SetsHochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typeinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:book, info:eu-repo/semantics/book, doc-type:Text
SourceSchriften aus der Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig
Rightsinfo:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess
Relationurn:nbn:de:bsz:15-qucosa2-168449, qucosa:16844

Page generated in 0.0022 seconds