Museums and Identity

Displaying in/the Peninsula: Museums as creators of a visual identity

by Pamela Erskine-Loftus

Abstract for forthcoming Gulf Research Meeting at the University of Cambridge, July 2012.

Museum building in colonies

by Suresh Pillai

it is the second part of my essay on Museumisatiom

Materializing Absence: Tourists, Surrogates, and the Making of “Jewish Portugal” (2007)

by Naomi Leite

In Things That Move: The Material Worlds of Tourism and Travel, ed. Mike Robinson. Leeds: Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change.

Tourism unfolds in and through encounters with the material world. But what is the role of the material when the... more Tourism unfolds in and through encounters with the material world. But what is the role of the material when the tourist attraction is an absence? How does one tour a world that no longer physically exists? I explore this question in relation to Portugal, a country with a burgeoning Jewish heritage tourism market but little material evidence of past Jewish settlement. The historical narrative that draws thousands of tourists each year highlights the country’s once-thriving medieval Jewish population, wiped out by mass forced conversions and three centuries of the Catholic Inquisition (1536-1821). The medieval community’s synagogues, cemeteries, and ritual objects were also destroyed, leaving few easily identifiable “Jewish” remains for tourists to visit today. And yet package tours of “Jewish Portugal” abound. This paper examines the practices through which tourists and tourism providers imaginatively engage the physical world of the present as a means to experience an invisible past, collaboratively creating their destination in the moment of the tourist encounter. Of particular interest are the ways in which buildings, neighborhoods, and museum objects stand in as surrogates for the medieval material heritage that was lost. The Museu Luso-Hebraico, until recently Portugal’s sole Jewish museum, provides a key example. Housed in the country’s only remaining pre-Inquisition synagogue, its ad hoc collection is made up largely of everyday Jewish items from around the world, sent by tourists who were moved by the lack of Portuguese objects to represent the long-absent medieval Jews.

The Material-Cultural Turn: event and effect.

by Dan Hicks

Cite this paper as: Hicks, Dan 2010. The Material-Cultural Turn: Event and Effect. In Dan Hicks and Mary C. Beaudry (eds) The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies. Oxford: OUP, pp. 25- 98.

The full references are provided in the bibliography for the published volume.

Engaging Islam: Working with Muslim Communities in a Multicultural Society

by Mirjam Shatanawi

published in 'Curator. The museum journal' 55 (1), 2012, pp. 65-79

The Contemporary Aristotelian Museum: Exploring the Museum as a Site of MacIntyre's Tradition‐constituted Enquiry

by Jenifer Booth

2012_SEMEDO_FERREIRA_conferencepresentation_2012_odense

by Alice Semedo

Leaf Map: Environmental Art Museum Program

by Stacey Marie Garcia

Elsewhere Collaborative: Museum Collections

by Stacey Marie Garcia

“Benevolence, Global Citizenship, and Post-Racial Politics.”

by David Jefferess

Topia: A Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies. 25 (Spring 2011): 77-95.

A brief look at the history of museums in the Region and wider Middle East

by Pamela Erskine-Loftus

Introductory essay for 2A Art & Architecture special edition ‘Museums in the Middle East’, issue 13, winter/spring 2010

Steampunk's Legacy: Collecting and exhibiting the future of yesterday

by Jeanette Atkinson

Forthcoming (2012) in Steaming into a Victorian Future: A Steampunk Anthology, Julie Anne Taddeo, Cynthia Miller and Ken Dvorak (eds).  Lanham: Scarecrow Press

In creating a striking visual and material culture, set within an alternative historical timeline, steampunks are... more In creating a striking visual and material culture, set within an alternative historical timeline, steampunks are challenging traditional representations of history and what constitutes “authentic” heritage. This, potentially, contests the curatorial voice within Western museums. This chapter engages with these challenges through examining recent exhibitions of steampunk art and material culture and encounters between curators and steampunks, with the aim of furthering the understanding of the power relations between museums and counter-communities such as steampunks.

Vigencia de la Nueva Museología en América Latina: conceptos y modelos. Por Georgina DeCarli (www.ilam.org)

by Bernardo Mendez Lugo

When Speaking Is a Risky Business. Understanding Silence and Interpreting the Power of the Past in Wanigela, Oro Province, Papua New Guinea

by Elizabeth Bonshek

"The increased importance placed upon interaction between `source communities' and museums which hold cultural... more "The increased importance placed upon interaction between `source communities' and museums which hold cultural heritage collections has been described by Peers and Brown (Museums and Source Communities. A Routledge Reader , 2003, p. 1) as `one of the most important developments in the history of museums'. This interaction entails the relinquishment of the museum's authoritative voice and the empowerment of the indigenous voice. This development assumes that source communities would have something to say about museum collections. My experience in a rural community in Papua New Guinea revealed complex dynamics surrounding museum objects. In Wanigela, questions about objects in museum collections were often met with hesitancy and silence. It was only when these objects became relevant within the context of local issues, embedded within social relationships between people that silences were eventually broken and the diverse significances surrounding silences emerged. An approach driven by academic or museological concerns over collections proved to be problematic in identifying the contemporary significance of the collections for Wanigelans."

Objetos que portan historias. Actores, memorias y configuraciones identitarias en el Museo Itinerante del Barrio de la Refinería y el Museo de la Ciudad. Rosario (Argentina), 1980-2006

by Horacio Miguel Hernán Zapata

En coautoría con Leonardo Simonetta. Publicado en Libro BRESCIANO, Juan Andrés (comp.), DIMENSIONES DE LA MEMORIA HISTÓRICA EN UN MUNDO GLOBALIZADO, Ediciones Cruz del Sur, Montevideo, en prensa.

Muchos de los museos que surgieron en la Argentina en las últimas décadas del siglo XX, lo hicieron auspiciados... more Muchos de los museos que surgieron en la Argentina en las últimas décadas del siglo XX, lo hicieron auspiciados por los postulados de la nueva museología. Aunque ésta sea la tendencia que se percibe en términos generales sobre la renovación de los mecanismos de gestión institucional en los museos, es necesario adecuar tal matriz nacional a los desarrollos concretos y singulares. La ciudad de Rosario no fue la excepción a este proceso social, político y cultural, y no obstante merece un estudio particular acerca de cómo se tradujeron tales políticas a la realidad local. En este sentido, el presente trabajo aborda las experiencias de dos museos de reciente creación en la ciudad de Rosario: el Museo de la Ciudad y el Museo Itinerante del Barrio de la Refinería. A diferencia de otros museos locales, como el Museo Histórico Provincial “Dr. Julio Marc” o el Museo Municipal de Arte Decorativo “Firma y Odilo Estévez” (cuyos derroteros estuvieron vinculados a la institucionalización de una memoria de la cultura burguesa de la ciudad), estas otras dos instituciones dejan a la vista diferentes concepciones por la definición y la apropiación del patrimonio. En comparación con las obras que forman parte de las colecciones de las primeras instituciones museales de la ciudad –todas ellas vinculadas al “arte culto” y a las expresiones legitimadas de la historia nacional y local, emparentadas con las realizaciones y los imaginarios valorados por la burguesía rosarina de principios del siglo XX–, los museos aquí estudiados distan de poner el acento sobre aquellas expresiones materiales con las que estos actores burgueses quieren verse identificados o están dispuestos a reconocer como propias. En efecto, el Museo de la Ciudad y el Museo Itinerante del Barrio de la Refinería se hallan entroncados con un programa de valorización de otros escenarios, de otras memorias y de las mismas personas que relatan esas memorias, tratándose muchas veces de colectivos sociales y grupos culturales relegados de los discursos oficiales de los museos tradicionales, que aquí denominaremos sectores populares.

Symbolic Reparation, Heritage and Political Transition in South Africa's Eastern Cape

by Kate Flynn

co-authored with T. King

This article first examines the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s recommendation of symbolic reparation for... more This article first examines the Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s recommendation of symbolic reparation for apartheid, and its effect on South African heritage. Second, it
considers the relationship between public history and civic nation building in South Africa, as well as problems in trying to develop an inclusive public history through museums. Case studies drawn from Grahamstown and Mthatha in the Eastern Cape are explored as examples of the redevelopment of the old and establishment of the new public history as part of
the negotiated transition.

Práticas (i) materiais em Museus

by Alice Semedo

Saltos Morales

by Sylwia Chrostowska

published in New Writing

'On the Formation of a National Museum of Architecture': The Architectural Museum versus the South Kensington Museum

by Isabelle Flour

Architectural History, 51 (2008), 211-38.

Educação Ambiental e a proposta do Museu de Geologia e Paleontologia de Vila Velha

by Jasmine Moreira