Challenging history in the museum
Challenging History in the Museum explores work with difficult, contested and sensitive heritages in a range of museum contexts. It is based on the Challenging History project, which brings together a wide range of heritage professionals, practitioners and academics to explore h…
"Museums are among the iconic buildings of the twenty-first century, as remarkable for their architectural diversity as for the variety of collections they display. But how does the architecture of museums affect our experience as visitors? This book proposes that by seeing spac…
Using examples of indigenous models from Indonesia, the Pacific, Africa and Native North America, Kreps illustrates how concepts of cultural heritage preservation and indigenous curation is transforming conventional museum practice. [from publisher's advertisement].
Curatopia: museums and the future of curatorship
"What is the future of curatorship? Is there a vision for an ideal model, a curatopia, whether in the form of a utopia or dystopia? Or is there a plurality of approaches, amounting to a curatorial heterotopia? This pioneering volume addresses these questions by considering the c…
"Despite the wonders of the digital world, people still go in record numbers to view drawings and paintings in galleries. Why? What is the magic that pictures work on us? This book provides a provocative explanation, arguing that some pictures have special kinds of beauty and su…
The concept of an encyclopedic museum was born of the Enlightenment, a manifestation of society's growing belief that the spread of knowledge and the promotion of intellectual inquiry were crucial to human development and the future of a rational society. But in recent years, mu…
"'Soft power' emerged as a concept in the late twentieth century to describe international relations based not on military or economic strength, but on influence. While the resources of 'hard power' are tangible--force and finance--soft power resources include ideas, knowledge, …
A collection of contributions from international scholars to show how social and cultural theory can bring new insight to debate about museums. Subjects include among others museums and globalisation; a feminist perspective on museums; and visitor research.
"This book explores how museums, galleries and heritage sites of all kinds--through the narratives they construct and publicly present--contribute to shaping the moral and political climate within which human rights are experienced, continually sought and fought for, realised an…
How will our increasingly digital civilization persist beyond our lifetimes? Audio and videotapes demagnetize; CDs delaminate; Internet art links to websites that no longer exist; Amiga software doesn't run on iMacs. In Re-collection, Richard Rinehart and Jon Ippolito argue that…