What is the value of things? Concepts of an Economy of Collection.

The Summer School on the topic “What is the value of things? Concepts of an Economy of Collections” offers 15 places for young scholars from all over the world. Applications are open to doctoral students, advanced master's students in literary and cultural studies, and colleagues from all disciplines with a connection to collecting. The application deadline is March 31, 2022.

Picking up, collecting, or disposing of things is the fundamental constitutive moment of any collection and thus becomes the result of a chain of decisions that is always related to an evaluation of things. To this end, the Summer School will address the value of things and ask, among other things, about types of value, value dynamics, and economic practices of collections. The focus will also be on the collecting and researching institutions as well as the relationship between scientific interests in dealing with objects and external indicators of their value.

One MWW focus is on digital collections research. Questions about the transformation process triggered by digitization are therefore of particular interest. Concrete digital methods will also be focused on: how can digital methods help to explore collection economies? The International Summer School has an interdisciplinary focus and combines seminars, lectures and field trips with the opportunity for independent research. The Summer School takes place within the framework of the Marbach Weimar Wolfenbüttel (MWW) Research Network, founded in 2013 and funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF).