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Today, join former AMNH Senior Insect Preparator Daisy Tainton for Observatory’s popular Anthropomorphic Insect Shadowbox Workshop. In this class, students will work with Rhinoceros beetles: nature’s tiny giants. Each student will learn to make–and leave with their own!–shadowbox dioramas featuring carefully positioned beetles doing nearly anything you can imagine. Beetles and shadowboxes are provided, and an assortment of miniature furniture, foods, and other props will be available to decorate your habitat. Students need bring nothing, though are encouraged to bring along dollhouse props if they have a particular vision for their final piece; 1:12 scale work best.

BEETLES WILL BE PROVIDED. Each student receives one beetle approximately 2-3 inches tall when posed vertically.

Daisy Tainton was formerly Senior Insect Preparator at the American Museum of Natur
al History, and has been working with insects professionally for several years. Eventually her fascination with insects and  love of Japanese miniature food items naturally came together, resulting in cute and ridiculous museum-inspired yet utterly unrealistic dioramas. Beetles at the dentist? Beetles eating pie and knitting sweaters? Even beetles on the toilet? Why not?

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Naturalistic Squirrel Taxidermy Class with Divya Anantharaman***** This is a 2 part class
Dates: Sunday, May 12 AND Sunday, May 19
Time: 12-3 PM
Admission: $250
Advance Tickets Required; Click here to purchase
Email divya.does.taxidermy at gmail dot com with questions or to be put on wait list
Class limit: 5
This class is part of the Morbid Anatomy Art Academy

In this intimate, hands-on class (limited to only five students), we will study the nutty ways of the squirrel! Students will create a fully-finished classic squirrel mount in a natural sitting position. Students will learn everything involved in producing a finished mount - from initial preparation, hygiene and sanitary measures, to proper technique and dry preservation. The class will teach how to use and modify a pre-made form to suit the nuances of each unique animal. The use of anatomical study, reference photos, and detailed observation will also be reviewed as important tools in recreating the natural poses and expressions that magically reanimate a specimen. A selection of natural props will be provided, however, students are welcome to bring their own bases and accessories if something specific is desired. All other supplies will be provided for use in class.
This class is now split in two sessions. Each student will leave class with a fully-finished piece, and the knowledge to create their own pieces in the future.

Also, some technical notes:

• We use NO harsh or dangerous chemicals.
• Everyone will be provided with gloves.
• All animals are disease free.
• Although there will not be a lot of blood or gore, a strong constitution is necessary; taxidermy is not for everyone
• All animals were already dead, nothing was killed for this class.
• Please do not bring any dead animals with you to the class.

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Anthropomorphic Mouse Taxidermy Class with Divya Anantharaman
Date: Saturday, May 18
Time: 1-5 PM
Admission: $110
***Please note: This class will be held offsite at Acme Studio : 63 N. 3rd Street, Williamsburg, Brooklyn
Advance Tickets Required; Click here to purchase
Email divya.does.taxidermy at gmail dot com with questions or to be put on wait list
Class limit: 10
This class is part of the Morbid Anatomy Art Academy

Anthropomorphic taxidermy--in which taxidermied animals are posed into human attitudes and poses--was an artform made famous by Victorian taxidermist and museologist Walter Potter. In this class, students will learn to create--from start to finish--anthropomorphic mice inspired by the charming and imaginative work of Mr. Potter and his ilk. With the creative use of props and some artful styling, you will find that your mouse can take nearly whatever form you desire, from a bespectacled, whiskey swilling, top hat tipping mouse to a rodent mermaid queen of the burlesque world.

In this class, Divya Anantharaman--who learned her craft under the tutelage of famed Observatory instructor Sue Jeiven--will teach students everything involved in the production of a fully finished mount, including initial preparation, hygiene and sanitary measures, fleshing, tail stripping, and dry preservation. Once properly preserved, the mice will be posed and outfitted as the student desires. Although a broad selection of props and accessories will be provided by the instructor, students are also strongly encouraged to bring their own accessories and bases; all other materials will supplied. Each student will leave class with a fully finished piece, and the knowledge to create their own pieces in the future.

Also, some technical notes:

• We use NO harsh or dangerous chemicals.
• Everyone will be provided with gloves.
• All animals are disease free.
• Although there will not be a lot of blood or gore, a strong constitution is necessary; taxidermy is not for everyone
• All animals were already dead, nothing was killed for this class.
• Please do not bring any dead animals with you to the class.

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Dance of Death by Hans Holbein: A Linocut Workshop with Classically Trained Artist Lado Pochkua 
Dates: Tuesdays May 20, May 27 and June 4
Time: 7 - 10 PM
Admission: $60
***MUST RSVP to morbidanatomylibrary [at] gmail.com
This class is part of The Morbid Anatomy Art Academy

The "dance of death" or "danse macabre" was a "medieval allegorical concept of the all-conquering and equalizing power of death, expressed in the drama, poetry, music, and visual arts of western Europe, mainly in the late Middle Ages. It is a literary or pictorial representation of a procession or dance of both living and dead figures, the living arranged in order of their rank, from pope and emperor to child, clerk, and hermit, and the dead leading them to the grave." (Encyclopedia Britannica). One of the best known expressions of this genre are a series of forty-two wood cuts by Hans Holbien published in 1538 under the title "Dance of Death."

In this class, students will learn the techniques of woodcuts and linocuts by creating a copy of one of Hans Holbein’s prints from the Dance of Death series. The class will follow the entire process from beginning to end: drafting a copy of the image, either a fragment or whole; transfer of the image to a linoleum block; cutting the image; printing the image on paper. Students will leave class with their own finished Dance of Death linocut and the skills to produce their own pieces in the future.

• Lesson 1: creating a copy of either a fragment or full image from the series on paper. The copy can either be freehand and stylized, or students can use a grid to copy more exactly.
• Lesson 2: transfer the drawing to linoleum.
• Lesson 3: correction of image, and beginning to cut the image.
• Lesson 4: finalizing the cut image.
• Lesson 5: Printing the image. Students will be able to use several colors and backgrounds to create the final image.

REQUIRED MATERIALS

• A block of linoleum: Blick Battleship Gray Linoleum, mounted or unmounted (details here)

OR

• Speedball Speedy-carve blocks, pink only (details here) Size: 9x12 or 8x10.

AND

• Linocutter set: Blick Lino Cutter Set (details here)Water soluble printing inks
• Printing paper
• Tracing paper
• Pencils
• Black markers (fine point)

ABOUT THE INSTRUCTOR
Lado Pochkhua was born in Sukhumi, Georgia in 1970. He received his MFA in Painting and Printmaking from Tbilisi State Art Academy in Georgia in 2001. He currently divides his time between New York and Tbilisi, Georgia.

Image: Image: “Melior est mors quam vita” to the aged woman who crawls gravewards with her bone rosary while Death makes music in the van." From Hans Holbein's "Dance of Death."

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"Why can’t we look away? Whether we admit it or not, we’re fascinated by evil. Dark fantasies, morbid curiosities, Schadenfreude: As conventional wisdom has it, these are the symptoms of our wicked side, and we succumb to them at our own peril. But we’re still compelled to look whenever we pass a grisly accident on the highway, and there’s no slaking our thirst for gory entertainments like horror movies and police procedurals. What makes these spectacles so irresistible? Author Eric G. Wilson attempts to discover the source of our morbid fascinations, drawing on the findings of biologists, sociologists, psychologists, anthropologists, philosophers, theologians, and artists. A professor of English with a penchant for Poe as well as a lifelong student of the macabre, Wilson believes there’s something nourishing in darkness. He believes that to repress death is to lose the feeling of life, and that a closeness to death discloses our most fertile energies.

Eric G Wilson is Thomas H. Pritchard Professor of English at Wake Forest University and author of several books that explore the power of life's darker sides, including Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck: Why We Can't Look Away; Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy; and The Mercy of Eternity: A Memoir of Depression and Grace. 

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Morbid Anatomy Presents at London's Last Tuesday Society this June and July
A series of London-based events, workshops, special tours, screenings and spectacles surveying the interstices of art and medicine, death and culture curated by Observatory's Morbid Anatomy
Date: June 2 - July 25
Time: Variable, but most lectures begin at 7 PM
Location: The Last Tuesday Society at 11 Mare Street, London, E8 4RP map here) unless otherwise specified

The series will feature Morbid Anatomy's signature mix of museum professionals, professors, librarians, artists, rogue scholars, and autodidacts--many flown in direct from Morbid Anatomy's base in Brooklyn, New York--to elucidate on a wide arr
ay of topics including (but not limited to!) The Neapolitan Cult of the Dead; "human zoos;" "speaking reliquaries;" why music drives women mad; eccentric folk medicine collections; Santa Muerte (or "Saint Death); dissection and masturbation; dissection and magic; Victorian memorial hair jewelry; the "hot nurse" in popular fiction; The Danse Macabre; "a cinematic survey of The Vampires of London;" and anatomical waxworks and death.

There will be also two special backstage tours: one of the legendary Blythe House, home of the vast and incredible collection of Henry Wellcome and the other of the Natural History Museum's zoological collection, featuring the famously gorgeous Blaschka invertebrate glass model collection; a special magic lantern show featuring "the weirdest, most inappropriate and completely baffling examples of lantern imagery" conjured by collector and scholar Professor Heard, author of Phantasmagoria- The Secret Life of the Magic Lantern; a screening of rare short films from the BFI National Archive documenting folk music, dance, customs and sport; and workshops in the creation of Victorian hair work, lifelike wax wounds, and bat skeletons in glass domes.

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Wax Wound Workshop with medical artist Eleanor Crook
Sunday, June 2, 2013 at 1:00 - 5:00 PM
More here

Let acclaimed sculptor Eleanor Crook guide you in creating your very own wax wound. Crook has lent her experience to professionals ranging from forensic law enforcement officers to plastic surgeons, so is well placed to help you make a horrendously lifelike scar, boil or blister.
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Art, Wax, Death and Anatomy : Illustrated lecture with art historian Roberta Ballestriero
Monday, June 3, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

Wax modelling, or ceroplastics, is of ancient origin but was revived in 14th century Italy with the cult of Catholic votive objects, or ex votos.  Art Historian Roberta Ballestriero will discuss the art and history of wax modeling sacred and profane; she will also showcase many of its greatest masterworks.
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Music Driving Women Mad: The History of Medical Fears of its Effects on Female Bodies and Minds: Illustrated lecture with Dr. James Kennaway
Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

Over the past few centuries, countless physicians and writers have asserted that music could cause very serious medical problems for the 'weaker sex'. Not only could it bring on symptoms of nervousness and hysteria, it could also cause infertility, nymphomania and even something called 'melosexualism'. This talk will give an outline of this strange debate, using the raciest stories to be found in gynaecological textb
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Solitary vice? Sex and Dissection in Georgian London With Dr Simon Chaplin
Wednesday, June 5, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

In this lavishly illustrated lecture, Simon Chaplin explores the sexual undertones of the anatomy schools of Georgian London, in which students dissected grave-robbed bodies in the back-rooms of their teachers' houses, while their masters explored new strategies for presenting their work to polite audiences through museums and lectures.
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Heartthrobs of the Human Zoo: Ethnographic Exhibitions and Captive Celebrities of Turn of the Century America: An Illustrated Lecture with Betsy Bradley
Thursday, June 6, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

From ransomed Congolese pygmies to winsome Eskimo babies, the American world's fairs and patriotic expositions  present history with a number of troubling ethnographic celebrities, and their stories offer a rare glimpse inside the psychology and culture of imperial America at the turn of a new century.
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The Astounding Collection of Henry Wellcome: Blythe House Backstage Tour with Selina Hurley, Assistant Curator of Medicine, The Science Museum
Friday, June 7, 2013 at 3:00pm
More here

Henry Wellcome (1853 - 1936)----early pharmaceutical magnate and man behind the Wellcome Trust, Collection, and Library--was the William Randolph Hearst of the medical collecting world. That collection, possibly the finest medical collection in the world, now resides in Blythe House, kept in trust by The Science Museum on permanent loan from the Wellcome Trust. Today, a lucky fifteen people will get a rare chance to see this collection, featuring many artifacts of which have never before been on public view, in this backstage tour led Selina Hurley, Assistant Curator of Medicine at The Science Museum.
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Neapolitan Cult of the Dead with Chiara Ambrosio
Monday, June 10, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

In tonight's illustrated lecture, Italian artist and filmmaker Chiara Ambrosio will elucidate this curious and fascinating "Neapolitan Cult of the Dead" and situate it within a the rich death culture and storied history of Naples.
  
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A Vile Vaudeville of Gothic Attractions: Illustrated lecture by Mervyn Heard, author of Phantasmagoria- The Secret Life of the Magic Lantern
Tuesday, June 11, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

An illustrated talk in which writer and showman 'Professor' Mervyn Heard waxes scattergun- sentimental over some of the more bizarre, live theatrical experiences of the 18th, 19th and early 20th century - from the various ghastly manifestations of the phantasmagoria to performing hangmen, self-crucifiers and starving brides.

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Professor Heard's Most Extraordinary Magic Lantern Show with Mervyn Heard
Wednesday, June 12, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

Professor Heard is well known to patrons of the Last Tuesday Lecture programme for his sell-out magic lantern entertainments. In this latest assault on the eye he summons up some of the weirdest, most inappropriate and completely baffling examples of lantern imagery, lantern stories and optical effects by special request of Morbid Anatomy.

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"Speaking Reliquaries" and Christian Death Rituals: Part One of "Hairy Secrets" Series With Karen Bachmann
Thursday, June 13, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

3-part series on human relics and Victorian mourning jewelry--master jeweler and art historian Karen Bachmann will focus on what are termed "speaking" reliquaries: the often elaborate containers which house the preserved body parts--or relics--of saints and martyrs with shapes which reflect that of the body-part contained within.

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Hair Art Workshop Class: The Victorian Art of Hair Jewellery With Karen Bachmann
Friday, June 14, 2013 at 1:00pm
More here

Hair jewellery was an enormously popular form of commemorative art that began in the late 17th century and reached its zenith during the Victorian Era. Hair, either of someone living or deceased, was encased in metal lockers or woven to enshrine the human relic o
f a loved one. This class will explore a modern take on the genre.

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The History of the Memento Mori and Death's Head Iconography: Part Two of "Hairy Secrets" Series Illustrated lecture with Art Historian and Master Jeweler Karen Bachmann
Friday, June 14, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

In tonight's lecture--the second in a 3-part series on human relics and Victorian mourning jewelry--master jeweler and art historian Karen Bachmann will explore the development of the memento mori,objects whose very raison d'être is to remind the beholder that they, too, will die.

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Hair Art Workshop Class: The Victorian Art of Hair Jewellery With Karen Bachmann
Saturday, June 15, 2013 at 1:00pm (More here)
Sunday, June 16, 2013 at 1:00pm (More here)

Hair jewellery was an enormously popular form of commemorative art that began in the late 17th century and reached its zenith during the Victorian Era. Hair, either of someone living or deceased, was encased in metal lockers or woven to enshrine the human relic of a loved one. This class will explore a modern take on the genre.

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The Victorian Love Affair with Death and the Art of Mourning Hair Jewelry: Illustrated lecture with Art Historian and Master Jeweler Karen Bachmann
Monday, June 17, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

The Victorians had a love affair with death which they expressed in a variety of ways, both intensely sentimental and macabre. Tonight's lecture-the last in a 3-part series on human relics and Victorian mourning jewelry-will take as its focus the apex of the phenomenon of hair jewelry fashion in the Victorian Era as an expression of this passion.

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Dissection and Magic with Constanza Isaza Martinez
Tuesday, June 18, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

This lecture examines images of human corpses in Early Modern European art in relation to two specific themes: the practice of 'witchcraft' or 'magic'; and the emergent medical profession, particularly anatomical dissection.
  
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Future Death. Future Dead Bodies. Future Cemeteries Illustrated lecture by Dr. John Troyer, Deputy Director of the Centre for Death and Society at the University of Bath
Thursday, June 20, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

Dr. John Troyer, from the Centre for Death & Society, University of Bath, will discuss three kinds of postmortem futures: Future Death, Future Dead Bodies, and Future Cemeteries. Central to these Futures is the human corpse and its use in new forms of body disposal technology, digital technology platforms, and definitions of death.

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‘She Healed Their Bodies With Her White Hot Passions’: The Role of the Nurse in Romantic Fiction with Natasha McEnroe Illustrated lecture Natasha McEnroe, Director of the Florence Nightingale Museum
Sunday, June 23, 2013 at 7:00pm
https://www.facebook.com/events/478987722156193/

Victorian portrayals of the nurse show either a drunken and dishonest old woman or an angelic and devoted being, which changes to a 20th-century caricature just as pervasive - that of the 'sexy nurse'. In this talk, Natasha McEnroe will explore the links between the enforced intimacy of the sickroom and the handling of bodies for more recreational reasons.

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Face lift or face reconstruction? Redesigning the Museum Vrolik, Amsterdam's anatomical museum An illustrated lecture with Dr. Laurens de Rooy, curator of the Museum Vrolik in Amsterdam
Monday, June 24, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

Counting more than five thousand preparations and specimens, the Museum Vrolikianum, the private collection of father Gerard and his son Willem Vrolik was an amazing object of interest one hundred and fifty years ago. In the 1840s and 50s this museum, established in Gerard's stately mansion on the river Amstel, grew into a famous collection that attracted admiring scientists from both the Netherlands and abroad. In this talk, Museum Vrolik curator Dr Laurens de Rooy will take you on a guided tour of the new museum, and give an overview of all the other aspects of the 'new' Museum Vrolik.

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The Walking Dead in 1803: An Illustrated Lecture with Phil Loring, Curator of Psychology at the Science Museum in London
Tuesday, June 25, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

A visiting Italian startled Londoners at the turn of the 19th century by making decapitated animals and executed men open their eyes and move around, as if on the verge of being restored to life. This was not magic but the power of electricity from the newly invented Galvanic trough, or battery. This talk will discuss a variety of historical instruments from the Science Museum's collections that figured in these re-animation experiments, including the apparatus used by Galvani himself in his laboratory in Bologna.
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The Influencing Machine: James Tilly Matthews and the Air Loom with Mike Jay
Wednesday, June 26, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

Confined in Bedlam in 1797 as an incurable lunatic, James Tilly Matthews' case is one of the most bizarre in the annals of psychiatry. He was the first person to insist that his mind was being controlled by a machine: the Air Loom, a terrifying secret weapon whose mesmeric rays and mysterious gases were brainwashing politicians and plunging Europe into revolution, terror and war. But Matthews' case was even stranger than his doctors realised: many of the incredible conspiracies in which he claimed to be involved were entirely real.

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A Waxen France: Madame Tussaud’s Representations of the French: Illustrated Lecture by Pamela Pilbeam Emeritus Professor of French History, Royal Holloway, University of London and author of Madame Tussaud and the History of Waxworks
Thursday, June 27, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

Madame Tussaud's presentation of French politics and history did much to inform and influence the popular perception of France among the British. This lecture will explore that view and how it changed during the nineteenth century.

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Backstage Tour of the Zoological Collection of the Natural History Museum with Miranda Lowe
Friday, June 28, 2013 at 3:00pm
More here

Today, ten lucky people will get to join Miranda Lowe, Collections Manager of the Aquatic Invertebrates Division, for a special backstage tour of The Natural History Museum of London. The tour will showcase the zoological spirit collections in the Darwin Centre, some of Darwin's barnacles and the famed collection of glass marine invertebrate models crafted by Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka in the 19th and early 20th century.
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Bat in Glass Dome Workshop: Part of DIY Wunderkammer Series With Wilder Duncan (formerly of Evolution Store, Soho) and Laetitia Barbier, head librarian at The Morbid Anatomy Library
Saturday, June 29, 2013 at 1:00pm (more here)
Sunday, June 30, 2013 at 1:00pm (more here)

In this class, students will learn how to create an osteological preparation of a bat in the fashion of 19th century zoological displays. A bat skeleton, a glass dome, branches, glue, tools, and all necessary materials will be provided for each student.  The classes will focus on teaching ancient methods of specimen preparation that link science with art: students will create compositions involving natural elements and, according to their taste, will compose a traditional Victorian environment or a modern display.
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The Coming of Age of the Danse Macabre on the Verge of the Industrial Age with Alexander L. Bieri Illustrated lecture with Alexander L. Bieri
Tuesday, July 9, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

The lecture not only discusses Schellenberg's danse macabre in detail, but also gives an insight into the current fascination with vanitas and its depictions, especially focusing on the artistic exploitation of the theme and takes into consideration the history of anatomical dissection and preparation.
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"Viva la Muerte: The Mushrooming Cult of Saint Death" Illustrated lecture and book signing with Andrew Chesnut
Wednesday, July 10, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

The worship of Santa Muerte, a psuedo Catholic saint which takes the form of a personified and clothed lady death, is on the rise and increasingly controversial in Mexico and the United States. Literally translating to "Holy Death" or "Saint Death," the worship of Santa Muerte-like Day of the Dead-is a popular form of religious expression rooted in a rich syncretism of the beliefs of the native Latin Americans and the colonizing Spanish Catholics.
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From Blue Beads to Hair Sandwiches: Edward Lovett and London's Folk Medicine: An Illustrated lecture with Ross MacFarlane, Research Engagement Officer in the Wellcome Library
Monday, July 15, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

During his life Edward Lovett (1852-1933) amassed one of the largest collections of objects pertaining to 'folk medicine' in the British Isles.  Lovett particularly focused his attention on objects derived from contemporary, working class Londoners, believing that the amulets, charms and mascots he collected - and which were still being used in 20th century London - were 'survivals' of antiquated, rural practices.
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The Vampires of London: A Cinematic Survey with William Fowler (BFI) and Mark Pilkington (Strange Attractor)
Thursday, July 18, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

This heavily illustrated presentation and film clip selection explores London's Highgate Cemetery as a locus of horror in the 1960s and 1970s cinema, from mondo and exploitation to classic Hammer horror.
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"Here's a Health to the Barley Mow: a Century of Folk Customs and Ancient Rural Games" Screenings of Short Films from the BFI Folk Film Archives with William Fowler
Wednesday, July 24, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

Tonight, the British Film Institute's William Fowler will present a number of rare and beautiful short films from the BFI National Archive and Regional Film Archives showing some of our rich traditions of folk music, dance, customs and sport. Highlights include the alcoholic folk musical Here's a Health to the Barley Mow (1955), Doc Rowe's speedy sword dancing film and the Padstow Mayday celebration Oss Oss Wee Oss (Alan Lomax/Peter Kennedy 1953).
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Of Satyrs, Horses and Camels: Natural History in the Imaginative Mode: illustrated lecture by Daniel Margócsy, Hunter College, New York
Thursday, July 25, 2013 at 7:00pm
More here

From its beginnings, science was (and still is) an imaginative and speculative enterprise, just like the arts. This talk traces the exchange of visual information between the major artists of the Renaissance and the leading natural historians of the scientific revolution. It shows how painters' and printmakers' fictitious images of unicorns, camels and monkfish came to populate the botanical and zoological encyclopedias of early modern Europe.

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You can find out more about all events here.