End of Year Event
End of Year Event Faculty of Archaeology
- Date
- Thursday 4 December 2025
- Time
- Location
-
Van Steenis
Einsteinweg 2
2333 CC Leiden - Room
- Reuvens Hall (Main Hall Van Steenis)
Short lecture by Professor Pieter ter Keurs
Collecting: A problem or an opportunity?
Collecting is a universal phenomenon. It serves to create order in a chaotic reality, but it can also lead to sickly hording and losing contact with reality. For archeology, anthropology and art history collections have been crucial in developing our knowledge of the past, foreign cultures and our sense of belonging. Material objects are not just illustrations of reality; they are sources of knowledge as well.
How do individual collectors deal with objects and collections? Are they active agents in the process of collecting or are the objects the active agents? And when does "normal' collecting becomes "abnormal"? In this lecture the psychological and ethical aspects of collecting will take centre stage.