Museum Studies Commons^™

Remembering Why: Finding Direction In The Face Of Unsustainable Collections Practices, Megan Barr

Museum Studies Theses

Shifts in the philosophy and practices that guide museums have changed the way we collect and what we collect. However, professional standards and expectations related to the management and use of those collections have largely remained unaltered. Museum professionals are repeatedly confronted by the impracticality and near impossibility of achieving accepted professional standards when managing collections. It is clear that the profession needs to rethink the practices and policies that shape our daily work assumptions, but where do we begin? Using Simon Sinek’s Golden Circle as a guide, we will rearticulate our purpose and reexamine the practices that get ...

Intersections: Art And The Museum As Sites For Civic Dialogue, Nenette Luarca-Shoaf

Art History Pedagogy & Practice

This essay describes the structure, pedagogy, and intent behind “Intersections,” a gallery program at the Art Institute of Chicago that occurred monthly between November 2016 and March 2020. The program, which continues less frequently and in a virtual format today, positions artworks as catalysts for helping people make sense of current events and timely issues. In doing so, it reframes adult learning in the museum as collaborative, dialogic, and open-ended, rather than setting up an experience that is primarily expert-driven and informational. Art historical methods such as visual analysis and consideration of primary source texts, along with collaborative learning activities ...

How To Build A World Art: The Strategic Universalism Of Colour Reproductions And The Unesco Prize (1953-1968), Chiara Vitali

Artl@s Bulletin

What role did UNESCO play in the art world of the post-war era? This article makes use of published and archival sources in order to clarify the utopia of a “World Art” that shaped UNESCO and led to the “Archives of Colour Reproductions of Works of Art”, a project of worldwide collect and diffusion of images of “masterworks” inspired by Malraux’s “Museum without walls”. This case study focuses on one particular aspect of the project, the “UNESCO Prize”, conceived by the Brazilian art critic and Marxist intellectual Mario Pedrosa for the 1953 São Paulo Biennial.

A Work Of Heart

DePaul Magazine

This article looks at the internship opportunities that DePaul students have available to kickstart their career through such programs as DePaul WORKS and INSuRE. Alumni in the museum, education and counseling, cybersecurity, law and public relations fields are interviewed.

Looted And Stolen Art: Tackling The Repatriation Issue, Samuel Poole

Student Writing

There are many examples of looted and stolen art all over the world. This paper discusses the pros and cons of repatriating art and artifacts to their rightful owner or country or origin. In many instances, these artifacts and works of art are a critical link to the survival of a culture.

Rethinking Museum Shops In The Context Of The Climate Crisis, Jamie Larkin

Art Faculty Articles and Research

This paper critically evaluates the role of the museum shop in the context of the climate crisis. Specifically, it considers how museum shops might be reconceptualized as an important facet of visitor communication within the emerging category of climate museums. Theoretically, the paper references the conceptual linkages of material and commodity culture in relation to climate issues, while practically, it frames the shop as a space that can both support exhibition messaging and prompt behavioral changes among visitors that might help reduce their planetary impact. These claims are explored with reference to the concepts of “gestalt” and “nudge” theory. The ...

Quarantine Adventures, Sarah Ragnauth

Bryant University Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies

“Quarantine Adventures'' is a museum made entirely out of objects brought back from travels abroad…. before Corona hit. The pieces are from the Dominican Republic, Punta Cana, Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, Jordan, and Istanbul. The museum is broken up into two main parts. The first part contains pieces that were brought back from the Caribbean, while the second part features work from the Middle East. Each piece has a different story to tell.

The mission of this museum is to provide a little sunshine during this dark time. Being quarantined is not easy and we are often filled with ...

The Impact On Older People’S Wellbeing Of Leaving Heritage Volunteering And The Challenges Of Managing This Process, Bruce Davenport, Andrew Newman, Suzanne Moffatt

The Qualitative Report

The benefits of volunteering for older volunteers and for the organisations who host them is well-documented. The impact of being obliged to leave volunteering due to age-related conditions, and any challenges that this creates for volunteer managers, are under-researched. This study explored how volunteers and volunteer managers experienced this point in the volunteering lifecycle and whether the topic warranted further research. Semi-structured interviews were carried out with fourteen older people, who were (or had been) volunteers at one of three cultural heritage organisations in the north-east of England alongside seven volunteer managers from those organisations. These represented the diversity of ...

James Blair Historical Review, Volume 10, Issue 1

James Blair Historical Review

No abstract provided.

"A Past Unremembered: The Transformative Legacy Of The Black Speculative Imagination" Exhibition Catalog, Julian Chambliss, Phillip Cunningham

2020-2021 Afrofuturism Syllabus - Week 20 - "A Past Unremembered: The Transformative Legacy of the Black Speculative Imagination" Exhibit

Exhibition catalog for "A Past Unremembered: The Transformative Legacy of the Black Speculative Imagination," co-curated by Dr. Julian Chambliss and Dr. Phillip Cunningham as part of the annual Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities. The exhibit locates Afrofuturist thought in earlier eras of American history and focuses on how African American writers of the 19th and early 20th centuries used speculative/science fiction to imagine a better, freer, more equitable future for Black people.

The Last Prisoners Of War: How Nazi-Looted Art Is Displayed In U.S. Museums, Monica May Thompson

Geifman Prize in Holocaust Studies

How art museums approach NLA is important today because much of the public relies on museums for their education. NLA cases are especially controversial because they are not only legal battles, but ethical ones so museums have to be extra careful approaching them. Even if the museum has won the legal battle the public may not see them as winning the ethical one therefore they might want to avoid displaying this information to the public. However, as we can see with the previous websites, it actually looks worse for museums not to be open and honest about their NLA pieces ...

Book Review: A Matter Of Facts: The Value Of Evidence In An Information Age, Terry Schiavone

School of Information Student Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Public Library Collections In The Balance: Censorship, Inclusivity, And Truth, Jennifer Downey, Carrie E. Kitzmiller

School of Information Student Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Dedication Despite Difficult Times, Catherine A. Liebau-Nelsen

School of Information Student Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Two-Headed Calves, Unicorn Horns, And Trephined Skulls: An Essay About Beautiful Museum Monsters, Kiersten F. Latham

Proceedings from the Document Academy

This essay is part personal exploration, part scholarly study, as I use my own material and experience to seek out the answers to questions that began from personal encounters with monsters in museums.

Dinosaur Representation In Museums: How The Struggle Between Scientific Accuracy And Pop Culture Affects The Public Perception Of Mesozoic Non-Avian Dinosaurs In Museums, Carla A. Feller

Museum Studies Theses

This thesis examines the struggle of museums to keep up with swiftly advancing scientific discoveries relating to the study and display of Mesozoic (approximately 250 million years to 65 million years ago) non-avian dinosaurs. The paper will explore the history of dinosaur discoveries, their display methodologies in museums, and how pop culture, including movies and video games, have influenced museum displays and public perception over time. The lack of updated dinosaur exhibits in smaller local museums leads to disbelief, or an outright denial, of new information such as feathered dinosaurs. Entertainment, such as movies and video games that have non-avian ...

What To Keep And How To Keep It: A Case Study Of Archival Material Related To The Richardson Olmsted Campus, Isabelle C. Bateson-Brown

Museum Studies Projects

Museums come in all shapes and sizes but do museum standards? The purpose of this thesis is explore the importance of adapting museum industry standards to the distinctive mission, collection, and feasibility of a specific institution. This research was exemplified by a case study of the historical and archival materials related to the Richardson Center Corporation and Richardson Olmsted Campus. The unique situation of the Richardson Olmsted Campus as a site-specific arts and cultural organization related to the adaptive reuse of a historic landmark was also contextualized within the trend of historic reuse and the larger scope of museum industry ...

Contextualizing A Maya Collection From Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, At The University Of Ghent, Belgium, Julia Montoya

Zea E-Books

The aim of the present study is to contextualize a collection of Maya artifacts that have been kept for 125 years at the University of Ghent, in Belgium. The objects came from one of the first archaeological excavations carried out in Guatemala, between 1880 and 1900. The collection includes 130 pottery pieces, 64 jadeite pieces, 24 stone objects (serpentine, silex, and other stones), and 52 obsidian pieces. The study started in 2016, with the identification and location of the provenance site, which was visited in 2017. The phases of documentation and photographic registration of the objects were completed in 2019 ...

The Jewish Museum Of Florida-Fiu: Archives On The Edge, Todd Bothel, Jacqueline Goldstein, Luna Goldberg

Archives Day

As the COVID-19 pandemic has threatened much of our access to communal spaces of learning and research such as universities, libraries, and museum collections, many new technologies have emerged to make these resources accessible to the public from the comfort of their homes.

The Jewish Museum of Florida-FIU (JMOF) collection consists of ~60,000 objects, documents, images and ephemera. The collections are wide-ranging in content, cover numerous subject headings and geographically represent all sixty-seven counties of Florida and Cuba.

Join the JMOF staff for a series of lightning talks with Registrar Todd Bothel, Curator Jacqueline Goldstein, and Education Manager Luna ...

Monroe County Libraries - Key West - Florida History Archives, Breana Sowers

Archives Day

No abstract provided.