The Poetics of Collecting

To collect and to narrate are two common human instincts. But they are often at odds with each other. On the one hand, we desire to tell a story out of a collection of things; or rather, a collection makes better “sense” when a story can be made out of its contents. On the other hand, unlike a typical story, a collection is open-ended; it is always ready to amend and expand itself. Also unlike a typical story where there is a beginning and an end, and where everything in between is connected through a thread, a collection is oftentimes an amalgamation of heterogeneous elements or a tightly controlled system of seriality (as explained by Baudrillard). By gathering things across times and locations into a secluded space (be it physical or conceptual), a collection is synchronic rather than diachronic. In its resistance to the desire to narrate, collecting presents to its audience a rawer state of things. In other words, the act of collecting has the ability to undo the temporal, causal, or teleological order at the core of a narrative, and ultimately challenges the making of meanings.

While we are fully aware of treatments of collecting as a research method, a profession, or a hobby by disciplines such as art history, museum studies, and history of science, this panel is primarily interested in collecting as a fundamental mentality and a disruptive force in the formation of narratives and meanings. We invite papers that articulate collecting’s literary and philosophical implications with a comparative or cross-cultural perspective. Questions to be addressed include but are not limited to: In what ways are collecting and narrating ir/reconcilable? When elements in a collection challenge narrative integrity, do we ignore, exclude, subjugate, or tolerate them? What is the relationship of collecting, narrative, and power? What roles does collecting play in our understanding of dreams, the subconscious, and the surreal? How do collections shape our perception of time and space? How does collecting affect the making of value systems, especially at times of social rupture?