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Münsterberg's Photoplays - continued...

In July 1891, Münsterberg sent James his new book on the tasks and methods of psychology (Über die Aufgaben und Methoden der Psychologie). To the accompanying letter, he attached a photograph, showing himself sitting behind a laboratory table and surrounded by his students and instruments. This photo was originally published in M. Münsterberg (1922) and reprinted in Hale (1980). As Helga Schmitt (1998) has shown, it was not taken 'on site,' i.e. in Münsterberg's home laboratory but at the studio of Freiburg photographer C. Ruf. On the lower margin of the original print Münsterberg wrote: "To Herrn Prof. James, with devoted greetings, from the Laboratory for exper. Psychology, by Hugo Münsterberg." On the lower part of the image he noted his name and the names of his students. They are (from left to right): Donald MacKay, Edmund Delabarre, James Gibson Hume, Carl Alexander, Resa von Schirnhofer, A. Jankovich, then Münsterberg himself, Waldemar Lewy, Hermann Stahr, Johannes Hoops, Abraham Slatopolsky, and Karl Siebert.

Hugo Münsterberg with his Students
Photograph showing Hugo Münsterberg with his Students, Freiburg 1891
See the original photograph or an interactive version explaining the instruments and persons.

Iconographically, the carefully arranged image is reminiscent of Leonardo Da Vinci's Last Supper – as if anticipating on the final failure of Münsterberg's academic career in the German-speaking context. Instead of food and drinks, psychological instruments are shared between Münsterberg and his eleven disciples – among them Resa von Schirnhofer, a friend of Nietzsche and one of the first female students in Europe. In the role of Doubting Thomas who, in Da Vinci's painting, is placed on the right side of Jesus and raises his finger, the photograph depicts Waldemar Lewy who points a pistol key in a playful manner to Münsterberg's ear. On the left side, three Harvard students group around the Muskelsinnapparat by Elbs that one of them, i.e. Delabarre, was busily using for his PhD on the sensation of movement (published as Über Bewegungsempfindungen in 1891).

The background of the image is also telling. The three windows in Da Vinci's painting are replaced by three emblems of Wundtian psychology: on the right a Hipp chronoscope (the standard for precision time measurements in Wundt's lab), on the left a complication apparatus according to Wundt (for measuring the mental time needed by single representations or ideas), and in the center a framed portrait of Wundt himself [first mise en abyme]. This arrangement can be seen as Münsterberg's tribute to the most important of his academic teachers. At the same time, it should be read as embodying a corresponding to the polemic arguments that Münsterberg, in his writings, put forth against Wundtian psychology: the old, idealist psychology stands in the background, while the new, functionalist psychology performs on stage.

Reference: Schmidgen, Henning. 2008. Münsterberg's Photoplays: Instruments and Models in his Laboratories at Freiburg and Harvard (1891-1893). The Virtual Laboratory (ISSN 1866-4784), https://vlp.mpiwg-berlin.mpg.de/references?id=art71&page=p0003