Grounded in case studies from individual objects and collections from North America, Europe, Africa, the Pacific Islands and Australia, this volume provides a new theoretical framework for examining material culture within museums.
Museum collections are often perceived as static entities hidden away in storerooms or trapped behind glass cases. By focusing on the dynamic histories of museum collections, new research reveals their pivotal role in shaping a wide range of social relations. ¡Over time and acro…
Introduction: Thinking about museums -- Do museums need objects anymore? -- Objects of culture and cultural objects -- Where is the East? -- Where have all the grown-ups gone? -- The birth and the death of a museum -- Museums, public space, and civic identity.
Do museums still need objects?
by Conn, Steven
fromArts and Intellectual Life in Modern America
Conn ranges across a wide variety of museum types--from art and anthropology to science and commercial museums--asking questions about the relationship between museums and knowledge, about the connection between culture and politics, about the role of museums in representing non…
Do museums still need objects?
by Conn, Steven
fromArts and Intellectual Life in Modern America
Conn ranges across a wide variety of museum types--from art and anthropology to science and commercial museums--asking questions about the relationship between museums and knowledge, about the connection between culture and politics, about the role of museums in representing non…
By exploring the processes of collecting, which challenge the bounds of normally acceptable practice, this book debates the practice of collecting 'difficult' objects, from a historical and contemporary perspective; and discusses the acquisition of objects related to war and gen…
By exploring the processes of collecting, which challenge the bounds of normally acceptable practice, this book debates the practice of collecting 'difficult' objects, from a historical and contemporary perspective; and discusses the acquisition of objects related to war and gen…