The Chimeric Imagination: From Japanese Shrines to P.T. Barnum
The Lens: Archaeology & The Biography of Objects
Drawing on May’s background in Applied Landscape Archaeology, this session treats the Fiji Mermaid not as a hoax, but as an artefact with a complex stratigraphy of meaning. We begin in Edo-period Japan, analysing the ‘Gaff’ through the lens of yōkai folklore and spiritual protection, before following its migration to the West. May will deconstruct how P.T. Barnum commodified ‘wonder’, transforming a sacred talisman into a work of the ‘experience economy’. We will ask: How does the museum display’s context change an object’s ontological status
Speaker Bio:
May Ho is an interdisciplinary researcher whose research integrates landscape archaeology, business management, and sustainability. She holds an MSc in Applied Landscape Archaeology (Distinction) from the University of Oxford and an MA in Managing Archaeological Sites (Distinction) from University College London. This academic background underpins her critical analysis of artefact biography, cultural stratigraphy, and spatial contexts.
Curated & Hosted By:
Lena Schattenherz Heide-Brennand is a Norwegian lecturer with a master degree in language, culture and literature from the University of Oslo and Linnaeus University. She has been lecturing and teaching various subjects since 1998. Her field of interest and main focus has always been topics that others have considered strange, eccentric and eerie, and she has specialised in a variety of dark subjects linked to folklore, mythology and Victorian traditions and medicine. Her students often point out her thorough knowledge about the subjects she is teaching, in addition to her charismatic appearance. She refers to herself as a performance lecturer and always gives her audience an outstanding experience
don’t worry if you miss it – we will send you a recording valid for two weeks the next day
