Museum Studies Commons^™

The Dual Meanings Of Artifacts: Public Culture, Food, And Government In The “What’S Cooking, Uncle Sam?” Exhibition, Elizabeth A. Petre, David H. Lee

Publications and Research

In 2011, “What’s Cooking, Uncle Sam? The Government’s Effect on the American Diet” (WCUS) was exhibited at the Lawrence F. O’Brien Gallery of the National Archives Building in Washington, DC. Afterward, it toured the country, visiting the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) David J. Sencer Museum in Atlanta, the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia, and the Kansas Museum of History in Topeka. The exhibition website states that WCUS was “made possible” by candy corporation Mars, Incorporated. WCUS featured over a 100 artifacts tracing “the Government’s effect on what Americans eat.” Divided into four thematic sections (Farm, Factory, Kitchen, …

These Are My People: An Ethnography Of Quiltcon, Kristin Barrus

Department of Textiles, Merchandising and Fashion Design: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis presents the first ethnography of QuiltCon, the annual fan and artist convention for quiltmakers who identify with and participate in a social phenomenon called the Modern Quilt Movement (MQM) within the 21st century quilt world. QuiltCon (QC) is one product of this movement. This study considers the following questions: What kinds of people attend QC, and what types of experiences and encounters do they expect at the convention? What needs are met at QC for this subset of quiltmakers who attend and for the greater community of Modern quiltmakers? What role does QC play in cementing the identity …

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 Undergraduate Journal

“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 …

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 …

Heritage Politics And Museums During Japanese Occupation Period, 1942-1945, Ajeng Ayu Arainikasih

International Review of Humanities Studies

Before the World War II, approximately 25 museums were already established in colonial Indonesia. At that time, most of the museums were built by the Europeans to serve their interests. However, when the Dutch capitulated to the Japanese military government, what had happened to the existing museums in Indonesia were slightly known. Therefore, this research examines the history of the museum development during the Japanese occupation period in Indonesia in 1942-1945. The data gathered for this archival study are through magazine and newspaper articles published during the Japanese occupation period as well as through the archives of Arsip Nasional Indonesia, …

2020 Medieval Object Assignment And Instructions, Maryanne Kowaleski

Digital Pedagogy: Omeka Medieval London

Assignment with instructions on researching the medieval object and loading metadata and images into the Omeka digital platform for each item and exhibition.

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 …

Mathematics And The Divine In Islamic Art: Study Guide, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Key Concepts and Terminology

Key Philosophers/Theologians

Key Monuments

Suggested Readings

Marāgha; From Encyclopaedia Of Islam Three, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Hülegü Khān (r. 654–63/1256–65) established Marāgha as capital of the Īlkhānate (654–754/1256–1353) in 657/ 1259, a year after his siege and largescale destruction of Baghdad. Located 130 kilometres south of Tabriz, Iran, it became the site of an astronomical observatory directed by Nasīr al-Dīn Tusī (d. 672/1273–4), a Persian astronomer and mathematician who assembled a team of the best minds in what are today Spain, Morocco, Egypt, and Iran. The mathematical work on planetary orbits carried out there helped shape the subsequent development of sciences in Europe. Stone remains of the observatory and its equipment were identified in …

Stories Of Return: A Collection Of Repatriation Narratives, Lydia Degn-Sutton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis examines the museological phenomena of repatriation beyond NAGPRA and the incorporation of Indigenous curatorial methods into museum collections practices. The project explores repatriation and collections caretaking practices at ten settler institutions through narratives of experience collected from museum staff. The findings of this research suggest that repatriation beyond NAGPRA and the Indigenization of collections care are situated processes that should be understood contextually and historically. This thesis argues that, in some cases, repatriation beyond NAGPRA and the integration of Indigenous perspectives, practices, and protocols into museum collections stewardship demonstrates a willingness by institutions to go beyond the minimum …

Monumental Change: Recontextualization And Inclusion Through The Lens Of Denver’S Civil War Monument And The Sand Creek Massacre, Sarah Davidson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, countries in the Global North have begun to grapple with the origins of long-standing monuments and their implication about society’s present values. This project is a case study of the Denver Civil War Monument, a monument erected in 1909 to honor soldiers from Colorado who fought during the years spanning the American Civil War. A plaque on the monument which lists the Battles and Engagements includes Sand Creek. The Sand Creek Massacre was an attack on a peaceful village of Cheyenne and Arapaho by Colorado’s 3rd Regiment that resulted in the murder and mutilation of hundreds of …

Remembering Together: Native Boarding School Stories On Display, Lydia Nancy Wood

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent scholarship on Native American boarding schools has focused on drawing out the complexities of boarding school history and emphasizing the plurality of experiences of students. This thesis examines how Native American boarding school stories have been displayed using two current museum exhibits: “Away from Home: American Indian Boarding School Stories” at the Heard Museum, and the Phoenix Indian School Visitors Center, a small gallery in one of the remaining school buildings. For this analysis I interviewed key players in both current exhibits and did close readings of the exhibits themselves, in conjunction with archival research about two model schoolhouse …

Ua1c11/114 Carol Braddy Photo Collection, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Photos of Hilltoppers Quartet exhibit.

What Moves You?: Georges Didi-Huberman’S Arts Of Passage And Pittsburgh Stories Of Migration, Alexandra Irimia

Languages and Cultures Publications

Contemporary art historian, critic, and theorist Georges Didi-Huberman thinks of images not as static objects, but as movements, passages, and gestures of memory and/or desire. For the French “historian of passing images,” as he has been called, “all images are migrants. Images are migrations. They are never simply local” (D2017). His book, Passer, quoi qu'il en coûte ("To Pass at Any Price"), co-written with the Greek poet and director Niki Giannari, takes on precisely the visual dynamics of passages, passengers, and passageways in the context of contemporary migration flows. In April 2018, only several months after the launching of the …

Representing Cfam's Visitors: Participatory Action Research Approach, Lindsay Fulop

Honors Program Theses

Using the participatory action research model, this study gathered preliminary data to determine the Cornell Fine Arts Museum’s (CFAM) current audience and lay the groundwork for future diversity and inclusion initiatives by assessing visitors’ experience of the museum and how it might be improved. Though the museum staff’s current practices closely resemble the research model, this is the first study to use it as a framework for conducting audience research alongside the staff. As this methodology is not common within the museum sphere, this study assessed the viability of participatory action research for further use within the field. The participatory …

Museum Representations Of Contested Spaces: The Kuril Islands, Emily Sandall

Slavic Studies Honors Papers

Since the turn of the twenty-first century, a boom of museums focused on the Ainu cultural subject has emerged in both Russia and Japan. By conceptualizing museums as nonneutral and culturally embedded productions which attempt to convey knowledge of foreign spaces to home spaces, this thesis will analyze the ways in which various museum institutions in Russia and Japan, as well as those produced by Ainu activist groups, choose to tell certain stories about the disputed Kuril Island territories and the Ainu people, and to map those stories within the broader colonial framework of the Kuril Islands dispute and indigenous …

The Museum As A Mirror: Reinterpreting And Delinking American Landscape Art From Colonial Narratives, Blythe C. Romano

Honors Theses

Art museums have recently been looking at their existing collections with heightened scrutiny, revisiting their decision to display colonial works uncritically in their gallery spaces, and reconsidering the idea that there is such a thing as a unified art historical canon. These conversations regarding reinterpretation are necessary for all museums that choose to display art with problematic histories, as this information is owed to visitors -- especially within the settler colonial context. The Colby College Museum of Art in Waterville, Maine is one site where such collection and gallery “reinterpretation” has begun to be implemented and discussed. For example, in …

"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.

We're All A Little Bit Gay: Female Homoeroticism In Greek Art, Devon A. Matson

Senior Independent Study Theses

This study provides a close analysis of women in artwork from Archaic, Classical, and Hellenistic Greece (700-30 BC). Such images have traditionally been considered from exclusively heteronormative and androcentric perspectives. I employ queer and feminist theory in an attempt to provide a new understanding of the images present on these examples of ancient art which showcase women’s relationships. I examine a terracotta figure, a stamnos, a psykter, and a cup that display women interacting with one another. Their interactions demonstrate both homosocial and homoerotic relations. In an effort to reach a broader audience, I have curated a digital exhibit that …

Reclaiming Orvieto, Italy: Livio Orazio Valentini’S Pursuit Of A Spatial, Cultural, And Artistic Heritage, Jeremy Culler

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

Jordan Nassar: The Field Is Infinite, Megan Bickel

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

Taking Space: Contemporary Women Artists And The Politics Of Scale, Elizabeth S. Hawley

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

Art Museum Docent Coordinators’ Perceptions: A Difficult Kind Of Balancing Act, Jennifer E. Schero

Theses and Dissertations

With visitors numbering in the millions, museums provide numerous entry points for attendees to engage with the objects in their care, including offering tours of their collections. Looking specifically at art museums, many institutions utilize volunteers to facilitate these guided looking experiences. Considerable research within the field of museum education focuses on the qualities of effective touring and methods and theories to support these endeavors. However, there is a lack of research focusing on the docent coordinators who oversee these volunteer guides. This study utilizes interpretive phenomenological analysis to explore perceptions of encyclopedic art museum docent coordinators concerning their preparation …

Beyond The Social: Artist Project Spaces, 2003 To 2016., Clare L. Van Loenen

Theses and Dissertations

This research examines storefront project spaces in the early 2000s that offered alternative approaches to the programming, organizing, and archiving found in conventional museums. I propose that such sites impacted participatory visual culture by offering a reformulatory role for arts’ practices, one that organized itself across disciplinary boundaries, chose a collaborative rather than competitive approach, and processed the ideological implications of their group work. Focused on three specific sites—Machine Project in Los Angeles, Elsewhere in Greensboro, and Mess Hall in Chicago—this study details the museological, pedagogical, and archival challenges of these artist-convened organizations. My interdisciplinary investigation offers a reference point …

Bertha Palmer And Anna Wintour: How Does Private Patronage Impact Identity-Building Within Cultural Institutions?, Marie Redetzki

MA Theses

Founded to provide a young nation with cultural foundations and dedicated to educating its public, the large historic cultural institutions of the United States find their origin in private initiatives and of private-public-partnerships for the benefit of the communities they serve. This thesis outlines that, at its core, museums and their funding structures in the United States exist in the format we find today because of the active and informed contributions of their patrons. It is these contributions that have shaped the American museum landscape over the course of its history. Two case studies – Bertha Palmer and her bequest …

Successful Event Fundraising Strategies For Nonprofit Museums, Stacie Barrett

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Some museum nonprofit organizational leaders are experiencing financial losses. Less than 25% of nonprofit agencies in the United States have enough funds to operate for six months. Museum nonprofit leaders are concerned with financial losses because the decrease in financial support can cause decreased operational funding and prohibit museum nonprofit leaders from carrying out the organizational mission. Grounded in Ajzen’s theory of planned behavior, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore successful event fundraising strategies nonprofit managers use to increase financial support. The participants were three successful nonprofit museum leaders who had fundraising responsibilities. The study …

Frank Duveneck: American Master, D. Bryan Schaeffer

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.

Art By Intention And Art By Appropriation: "Authenticity," Western Encounters, And Ethics Of Collection And Display Of African Art, Katelyn Nicole Brockmeyer

Honors Program Theses

This research project surveys the overlap of Western notions of authenticity, encounters with Africa, and the ethics of collecting and displaying of African art objects. First, I define the issues surrounding definitions of authenticity; second, I lay out the historical background of Western interaction with West Africa and modern demand for African art objects; third I discuss the issues authenticity and corresponding ethics of display; finally, I explain how this information applies to two objects from the UNI Museum collection. In this thesis, I address the ways the categories of “authentic,” “fake,” and replica are intertwined in the history of …

The Spatial And Visual Dimension Of Protests: Art And Activism In The 2013 Ludwig Lépcsö (Ludwig Stairs) Budapest Protest Camp, Izabel Galliera

Art Inquiries

No abstract provided.