© ERC-Projekt „Dissecting Society“
This exhibition revolves around illustrated magazines in Paris from the 1830s through the 1850s, highlighting the significant role of this medium in documenting the transformation of urban life in word and picture.
Even before social science disciplines had become an established feature of university curricula, magazines depicted detailed social observations and descriptions, literally putting people in the picture in their everyday context. To this day, the magazine illustrations in particular provide a fascinating insight into how people perceived and understood the big city social milieu and how they came to terms with economic, political, technological and social upheavals. In many cases, the articles have lost none of their explosive edge and topical relevance.
The purpose of the exhibition is to make some of the findings of the research project Dissecting Society. Nineteenth-Century Sociographic Journalism and the Formation of Ethnographic and Sociological Knowledge available to a broader audience. The project was headed by LMU Professor Christiane Schwab.