Museum Studies Commons^™

Shape-Note Music Traditions Of The Shenandoah Valley, Tyler Brinkerhoff

Masters Theses, 2020-current

Though over the years documents about shape-note music from Joseph Funk and Sons and the Ruebush-Kieffer companies have been spread throughout many archives, they are now being brought back together online in one digital archive. Interpreting the information contained in these documents and the ledger book of subscribers for The Southern Musical Advocate and Singer’s Friend magazine through graphs and maps makes the information contained in them easier to access for researchers. The collaboration between a physical museum site, a website, and a Omeka site allow for multiple ways to learn about the history of shape-note music in the Shenandoah …

Collections As Currency? New Approaches To Art Museum’S Deaccessioning Dilemmas, Juliana Guerra

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD) defines deaccessioning as “the process by which a work of art or other object is permanently removed from a museum’s collection.” Though deaccessions have occurred quietly throughout history, these practices have been recently thrust into the spotlight as art museums grapple with the unprecedented economic challenges of the 21st century. While monetizing the collection is legal, it is undoubtedly controversial, especially in light of the AAMD’s pandemic-prompted decision to suspend sanctions on museums that apply these funds towards operations. With today’s booming art market, deaccessioning may provide an attractive windfall to a struggling …

Preservation And Public History In Mound Bayou, Mississippi, Walker Bray

Honors Theses

This paper is an exploration of the history of Mound Bayou, Mississippi, an all Black community in the Mississippi Delta formed by freedmen in the wake of Reconstruction. This paper also discusses the ways in which Mound Bayou citizens are working to preserve their history and make it known to a wider audience. In particular, this work discusses the recently opened Mound Bayou Museum of African American Culture and History and related efforts to restore and preserve historic structures in Mound Bayou. In addition, this work also seeks to explore ways in which the University of Mississippi can effectively supplement …

They Tell Their Stories Still: The Use Of Storytelling And Narrative Exhibition Development To Communicate Native American Art, History, And Culture In Museums, Ian T. Cherry

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

Museums and Indigenous communities have shared tensions resulting from the way Native Americans have been discussed and depicted by museums, institutions which in the past have displayed indigenous cultures and artifacts alongside extinct animals and outdated dioramas. Despite this, Indigenous cultures and museums share an emphasis on storytelling practices, both as a means of education as well as preservation. This study sought to examine the use of storytelling and narrative exhibition development in museum exhibitions focused on Native American art, history, and culture. Through the course of a qualitative comparative cross case study, three key themes were identified, being Indigenous-led …

It's Just Caring: Improving The Museum Experience For Visitors With Autism Through Social Narratives, Reagan R. Stone

Honors Theses

This project explores how museums can improve the visitor experience for visitors with disabilities, more specifically for visitors with autism. In general, museums are environments that have a specific set of rules, guidelines, and built-in social interactions that visitors are expected to understand and follow. These guidelines, as well as the sensory overload that exists within a new environment, can make visiting the museum a stressful, and even negative experience for individuals with autism and their families. A social narrative, a simple written and visual guide that explains characteristics of new environments and various aspects of social situations, is a …

Annual Report 2021-2022, Margaret Leininger

Galleries at Peeler Annual Reports

Contents: A Note from the Director About Us Exhibitions Collections Administration and Finance Program Sponsors

The Met Costume Institute: Evolution, Metamorphosis, And Cultural Phenomenon, Shelby Kanski

Senior Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

The Political Power Of Museums: A Case Study On The Museum Of Spanish Colonial Art, Emily Snyder

History Undergraduate Honors Theses

Museums hold an esteemed position that grants validity to the objects and history held within them based solely on their inherent authority as institutions. This makes the analysis of what museums portray incredibly important given the extent of people’s belief that they hold the power to determine authoritative truth concerning art, history, and society. In the late 1970s, museums underwent a period of change tied to becoming more pluralistic. Beginning in the 1990s, many museums touted their postcolonial status in the wake of their inclusion of and collaboration with traditionally outsider communities. Despite this change appearing to create more diverse …

Through Their Eyes: A California Indian Art Exhibit, Michael Chavez

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

In this project I have demonstrated my professional proficiency by curating an exhibit from conception to completion. During the duration of this project I was required to use diverse museum sciences skillset including collections management, curation, development and design of the exhibit. Curated and built inside the Great Hall at the Dorothy Ramon Learning Center in downtown Banning, ancestral lands of the Serrano, this project displays not only my career skillset but also my proud connection to the California Landscape. As Tongva of the Los Angeles River Basin, I also had the opportunity to showcase the artwork of other California …

Constructing An Interpretive Master Plan For The Confederate Reunion Grounds State Historic Site, Alysha M. Richardson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Confederate Reunion Grounds State Historic Site is owned and operated by the Texas Historical Commission. Interpretation of the site spans the 1864-1940 period and includes stories of groups that once met there for social events, including the United Confederate Veterans. In recent years, the Confederate Reunion Grounds has seen a decline in visitation as well as a reduction in staff. This capstone project focuses on creating an interpretive master plan to accommodate the change. This interpretive master plan aims to address the changes that have occurred over the past seven years and set staff goals and objectives.

How Neurodiversity Centered Museum Education Within Art Museums Can Benefit Children With Adhd And Autism Spectrum Disorders, Maria I. Johnson

Museum Studies Theses

Within the last twenty years, many major museums have made an effort to be seen and operate as pillars of their communities. They have begun shifting their organizational standards to be more inclusive and accessible to marginalized communities. When looking at the educational practices of modern art museums, there is undoubtedly a common standard of educational programs. While this formula has worked for many, there is a community that has voiced the need for a change. The neurodivergent community, which developed within the last two decades, should have access to art museum education in an accessible way. The following thesis …

West Chester University: Much Fanfare For 150th University, Bill Rettew

WCU Museum in the News

No abstract provided.

Interview With Marylou Rocha, Sabrina Flores

WS3380 Interviews

This is an interview with MaryLou Rocha, the education coordinator at El Paso's Holocaust Museum. This interview was done through zoom and written down for further expression about her activism.

Extended Reality And The Graphic Design Curriculum, Tina Korani, Meghan Saas, Samantha Tan

Frameless

VXR technology has seen significant growth in recent years across all commercial industries and is poised to continue that trend. The graphic design industry is embracing XR as a new medium, and XR skills are in high demand within the field. Institutions of higher education must adopt XR—and particularly AR—into the graphic design curriculum to keep pace with the industry. Several barriers are slowing this curricular adoption but can be overcome. Advances in AR technology have created an opportunity for its use as both a pedagogical tool and a creative medium. Integrating AR with traditional graphic design elements and principles …

What Do I Do With That?, Abby Stambach

Staff publications

“What Do I Do with That” describes a museum once housed in an academic library which became part of the institution's archives, and discusses how this legacy collection impacted the work of today's Archives & Distinctive Collections Department.

The academic archive staff identifies preservation needs such as storage and documentation, as well as how they work with the dedicated campus gallery to provide access to its art collections.

(Witch) Crafting Identity: An Autoethnographic Analysis Of The Dutch National Identity Through Women In Haunted History, Hallie Kamosky

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This autoethnographic study analyzes the presentation of women in haunted history in order to dissect the construction of the Dutch national identity. Through a personal narrative experience, the art, museums, tourist enterprises, and physical locations that constitute the city of Amsterdam are put in conversation with one another in order to draw out the inconsistencies and hypocrisies in the Dutch narratives of progress. Firstly, the Spin Huis and the ghost story connected to it are juxtaposed to the City of Amsterdam’s narrative in order to draw out themes of sexual exceptionalism at the expense of foreign bodies. Next, the Amsterdam …

Lost Art And Lost Lives: Nazi Art Looting And Art Restitution, Sophia Gravenstein

Student Publications

During the Nazi Regime, Adolf Hitler and the Nazis seized an estimated one fifth of all art in Europe and more than 5 million cultural objects before 1945. The Nazis established control over the regime and furthered their racist ambitions through stealing art of any cultural or monetary value to them. They stole “degenerate” art in an attempt to annihilate “racially inferior” races, and “racially pure” art for the glorification of the “Aryan” race. Since the end of WWII, the return of Nazi-looted art to its original owners or their heirs has been an important avenue for remembrance of and …

Destruction Is A Must-See: Coastal Heritage Site Erosion And Public Perception Of Climate Change, Haley Borowy

Senior Theses

Archaeological sites in South Carolina are vanishing. As sea level rise, and therefore coastal erosion, worsen, more sites will disappear. The questions of how erosion at these sites is measured and how the public perceives the effects of climate change have been studied separately, but not together. Here, the intersection of these is discussed, alongside how sites are portrayed affects how the public perceives them, and therefore their importance. Studies on measuring coastal erosion, local news reports, government documents, and public perception of coastal management and sea level rise illuminate how people eventually decide what is worth saving.

Sensing Brownness: On Racialization, Perception, And Method, Amber Jamilla Musser

Publications and Research

Maureen Catbagan’s Dark Matter (2020) photography series invites us into sensing brownness. In these images of museum passages and stairwells, silhouettes of museum guards, and evocative shadows, Catbagan presents the landscape of the museum. However, this may not be immediately recognizable because the photographs draw focus to the parts of museums to which we rarely pay attention. In particular, Catbagan’s attention to the presence of guards allows us to perceive dynamics of racialized and gendered labor and laborers who, in an echo of their architectural focus on minor, peripheral spaces and shadows, hover between the underrecognized and oft-neglected, thereby allowing …

Ischool Student Research Journal, Vol.11, Iss.2, Student Reseach Journal

School of Information Student Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Book Review: Knowledge Justice: Disrupting Library And Information Studies Through Critical Race Theory, Sofia Y. Leung And Jorge R. López-Mcknight, Jessica Nombrano Larsen

School of Information Student Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Academic Libraries And Writing Centers: Collaborations At Us Public Research Universities, Mary K. Bolin

School of Information Student Research Journal

The websites of 71 US research universities were the source of data on the relationship of academic libraries and campus writing centers, which provide support for developing written communication skills. All 71 institutions have writing centers, generally administered by the academic success operation, the English department, or a college such as arts and sciences. Just under half (n=35) of the institutions have a writing center located in the library. In 16 of those institutions, the library is the only location of the writing center. The general issues of academic success and “library as place,” as well as the space that …

Experience Peer-Review With Srj, Tierra Holmes

School of Information Student Research Journal

No abstract provided.

West Chester: History Of Wcu Buildings Topic Of Live Zoom Lecture Series, Medianews Group

WCU Museum in the News

No abstract provided.

Persian Velvets Of The 17th Century: Symmetry, Craft, And Technology, Carol Bier

Textile Research Works

Symmetry is the organizing principle that underlies patternmaking in compound woven textiles of 17th century Iran. Persian velvets are particularly noteworthy for their complicated weave structure. What defines compound weaves is the interlacing of more than one set of warps (longitudinal elements held under tension at the loom) with wefts (transverse elements). Velvets introduce an additional set of supplementary warps held under differential tension. The weaving of a compound textile requires both a pattern harness and a structure harness for the interaction of warps and wefts. A weaver on the bench manipulates the structure harness for each passage of the …

The French Conundrum: The Unsettled Relationship Between The Colonial Past, Identity Construction, And Immigration In The Musée National De L’Histoire De L’Immigration, Sierra Ruby Newby-Smith

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This paper focuses on the intersection of identity, the colonial past, and immigration in France through the lens of the Musée National de l’Histoire de l’Immigration. The museum, which opened in 2007 and is currently redesigning its permanent exhibition, has struggled to come to terms with France’s colonial past, a defining aspect of the museum as a result of its location and theme. This paper argues that the museum functions as a microcosm of France’s difficulty to address its colonial past while still maintaining its current national identity construction. Thus, this paper explores how the Immigration Museum is and has …

The Pervert’S Guide To The Museum, Seth Ifor Alt

CGU Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation provides a sustained theoretical articulation of core Lacanian psychoanalytic concepts situated within the standing difficulties in the practice and theory of museums. Drawing upon research gathered from site visits, informational interviews, textual analysis, and an extensive engagement with the seminars of Jacques Lacan, I enumerate here a first attempt at what a Lacanian theoretical formation can contribute to museum studies scholarship. Through this research this dissertation shows psychoanalysis to be especially useful for museum studies owing to how the troubles immediately encountered in the everyday material practices of museological work are structurally analogous to the impossibilities experienced on …

Everything But The Smell: The Ethics Of The “Connective Turn” In Argentinian Memory Activism, Megan L. Corbin

Languages & Cultures Faculty Publications

This chapter interrogates what is lost and what is gained in [the] turn toward cyberspace as a new venue for interacting with a traumatic past. It will first examine the discussions and debates that took place in Argentina as former detention centres were converted into sites of memory, using the debate about the recovery of Escuela Mecánica de la Armada [ESMA] (the Navy School of Mechanics) as an illustrative example. Then, it will compare the features of some of actual memory sites in Buenos Aires with the interactive documentary features on the website, specifically focusing on the narrative logic and …

Selling Transcendence: The Rise Of Experience And The Big Business Of Immersive Art, Emeline Callaway

MA Theses

There has been an explosion of immersive art experiences over the past few years. Even as the pandemic has taken a toll on tourism, immersive art ventures and experimental museums have expanded around the world, drawing significant crowds and offering investors an inside into a new, emerging industry. This thesis ties these new experiential businesses to the history of art through an analysis of immersive artistic exploration over time and connects the current forms of investment to the history of immersive art patronage. Exploring the relationship between major economic shifts and the development of the art market, this thesis explains …

Mineral Displays As Embodiments Of Geologic Thought And Colonial Invisibility, Selby Hearth, Carrie Robbins

Geology Faculty Research and Scholarship

Mineral displays embodied how we think about minerals: as symbols of social status, scholarly tools, theological objects, and instruments of education. Mineral displays are also representations of how we don’t think about minerals: as human products embedded in wider human histories. This paper reviews the historical themes in mineral display, from the cabinets of curiosity of the Renaissance to modern museums, and articulates a major narrative that has been omitted from mineral display traditions: the human processes that bring mineral specimens from the ground to the display case, particularly Western colonialism and labour. Historically, mineral displays have been used to …