Simpson, A. (2022). The museums and collections of higher education. Taylor & Francis.
[Abstract]The Museums and Collections of Higher Education provides an analysis of the historic connections between materiality and higher education, developed through diverse examples of global practice. Outlining the different value propositions that museums and collections bring to higher education, the historic link between objects, evidence and academic knowledge is examined with reference to the origin point of both types of organisation. Museums and collections bring institutional reflection, cross-disciplinary bridges, digital extension options and participatory potential. Given the two primary sources of text and object, a singular source type predisposes a knowledge system to epistemic stasis, whereas mixed sources develop the potential for epistemic disruption and possible change. Museums and collections, therefore, are essential in the academies of higher learning. With the many challenges confronting humanity, it is argued that connecting intellect with social action for societal change through university museums should be a contemporary manifestation of the social contract of universities.
[Citing Place (1956)]  
Citing Place (1956) in context (citations start with an asterisk *):
Chapter 2 DEVELOPING INSTITUTIONAL NARRATIVES
* There are university museums at Adelaide such as the Tate Museum (geology), the Vernon-Roberts Museum (pathology & anatomy) and a Museum of Classical Archeology. The university also has a large number, and wide range of collections from different academic disciplines, including a philosophy collection. Ullin T. Place (1924-2000) was a lecturer in philosophy and psychology at the University of Adelaide from 1951-1954. He was the brother of the British poet Milner Place and Canadian sociologist Dorothy Smith. A Place publication in analytical philosophy (Place 1956) was considered an important step in establishing identity theory. along with the philosopher Jack Smart, Place displaces the previously accepted paradigms of philosophical behaviourism. Place contended mental states should be identified as neural states and not be defined in terms of behaviour. In other words, consciousness was nothing more than a brain process. He therefore became one of the founders of the materialistic mainstream of the philosophy of mind. The position adopted by Place and Smart has been referred to internationally as "The Identity Theory of Mind" or "Australian Materialism."
Place bequeathed his preserved brain, one of the sources of this new theory of mind. to be displayed with the message "Did this Brain Contain the Consciousness of U. T. Place?" at the University of Adelaide. Viewing the brain of U.T. Place immediately foments questions in one's mind about what went through the brain that was once situated (in Place so to speak) in the University of Adelaide philosopher. It can be considered a researcher's unique post-mortem provocation to future generations of aspiring scholars seeking to understand the mind. The object itself carries a unique and specific institutional narrative; institutional context resonating with object and vice versa.