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MUSEUM THEORY EDITED BY ANDREA WITCOMB AND KYLIE MESSAGE Museum Theory offers critical perspectives drawn from a broad range of disciplinary and intellectual traditions. This volume describes and challenges previous ways of understanding museums and their relationship to society. Essays written by scholars from museology and other disciplines address theoretical reflexivity in the museum, exploring the contextual, theoretical, and pragmatic ways museums work, are understood, and are experienced. Organized around three themes—Thinking about Museums, Disciplines and Politics, and Theory from Practice/Practicing Theory—the text includes discussion and analysis of different kinds of museums from various, primarily contemporary, national and local contexts. Essays consider subjects including the nature of museums as institutions and their role in the public sphere, cutting-edge museum practice and their connections with current global concerns, and the links between museum studies and disciplines such as cultural studies, anthropology, and history.
New Museum Theory and Practice is an original collection ofessays with a unique focus: the contested politics and ideologiesof museum exhibition. Contains 12 original essays that contribute to the field whilecreating a collective whole for course use. Discusses theory through vivid examples and historicaloverviews. Offers guidance on how to put theory into practice. Covers a range of museums around the world: from art tohistory, anthropology to music, as well as historic houses,cultural centres, virtual sites, and commercial displays that usethe conventions of the museum. Authors come from the UK, Canada, the US, and Australia, andfrom a variety of fields that inform cultural studies.
In a series of richly detailed case studies from Britian, Australia and North America, Tony Bennett investigates how nineteenth- and twentieth-century museums, fairs and exhibitions have organized their collections, and their visitors. Discussing the historical development of museums alongside that of the fair and the international exhibition, Bennett sheds new light upon the relationship between modern forms of official and popular culture. Using Foucaltian perspectives The Birth of the Museum explores how the public museum should be understood not just as a place of instruction, but as a reformatory of manners in which a wide range of regulated social routines and performances take place. This invigorating study enriches and challenges the understanding of the museum, and places it at the centre of modern relations between culture and government. For students of museum, cultural and sociology studies, this will be an asset to their reading list.
Museums must change to illuminate the histories, cultures, and social issues that matter to their local population. Based on a unique longitudinal ethnographic study, Transforming Museum Management illustrates how a traditional art museum attempted to transform into a more inclusive and community-based institution. Using open systems theory and the Buddhist concept of mutual causality, it examines the museum’s internal management structure and culture, programs and exhibitions, and mental models of museum workers. In providing both theoretical and practical foundations to transform management structures, this accessible volume will benefit stakeholders by proposing a new culture and structure to arts institutions, to change practice to be more relevant, diverse, and inclusive. This book will be an invaluable resource for researchers and advanced students of museum studies, cultural management, arts administration, non-profit management, and organizational studies.
As museums are increasingly asked to demonstrate not only their cultural, but also their educational and social significance, the means to understand how museum visitors learn becomes ever more important. And yet, learning can be conceptualised and investigated in many ways. Coming to terms with how theories about learning interact with one another and how they relate to ‘evidence-based learning’ can be confusing at best. Museum Learning attempts to make sense of multiple learning theories whilst focusing on a set of core learning topics in museums. Importantly, learning is considered not just as a cognitive characteristic, as some perspectives propose, but also as affective, taking into consideration interests, attitudes, and emotions; and as a social practice situated in cultural contexts. This book draws attention to the development of theory and its practical applications in museum situations such as aquariums, zoos, botanical gardens and historical re-enactment sites, among others. This volume will be of interest to museum studies students, practitioners and researchers working in informal learning contexts, and will help them to reflect on what it means to learn in museums and create more effective environments for learning.
Museum Exhibition is the only textbook of its kind to consider exhibition development using both theory and practice in an integrated approach. This comprehensive study covers care of exhibits, writing accompanying text, using new technology, exhibition evaluation, administration and content for a wide range of collections. It provides a complete outline for all those concerned with providing displays in museums and other cultural heritage contexts.
Museums of contemporary art are expanding and in crisis. They attract ever-larger audiences, architects constantly redesign them, and the growing number of artists is producing more massively than ever; at the same time museum funds are dwindling in the economic crisis and an overheated art market. This text gathers together interviews with international artists, architects and curators of the contemporary art world.
The International Handbooks of Museum Studies bring together original essays by a global team of experts to provide a state–of–the–art survey of the field of museum studies. Creates an authoritative, multi–volume reference, offering unprecedented depth of coverage and breadth of scholarship in this interdisciplinary field Accessibly structured into four thematic volumes exploring all aspects of museum theory, practice, media and controversies, and the impact of new technologies Includes a treasure–trove of examples and original case studies to illuminate the various perspectives represented Features original essays by an international team of contributors, including leading academics and practitioners, as well as up–and–coming names in the field Provides an indispensable resource for the study of the development, roles, and significance of museums in contemporary society Available online or as a four–volume print set; visit www.museumstudieshandbooks.com for more information
Museum Studies: An Anthology of Contexts provides a comprehensive interdisciplinary collection of approaches to museums and their relation to history, culture, philosophy and their adoring or combative publics. Brings together for the first time a wide array of texts that mix contemporary analysis with historical documentation Includes five sections that highlight central themes in museum studies: issue-oriented contexts in museology; states of "nature"; the status of nations; history, memory and other locations; and arts, crafts and visitors Addresses the development of museums, the role of the museum in society, and issues central to contemporary museum studies Opens with an introductory essay that situates museum studies in a truly interdisciplinary context and includes an opening essay for each section that guides the reader through the selections Includes a bibliography and list of resources devoted to museum studies that makes the volume an authoritative guide on the subject
The Museum Manager’s Compendium: 101 Essential Tools and Resources helps you make and implement your decisions as a museum manager and strategic planner. This book’s 101 sections present a treasure trove of definitions, diagrams, processes, choices, and worksheets, in major areas of museum management. Collectively, they reflect the literature and contributions of some of the field’s best thinkers. The resources distill half a century of museum experience over hundreds of projects done by scores of talents and experts internationally for all types of museums. The Museum Manager’s Compendium can be used as: A frequent reference book to consult when facing decisions or planning for the future A source of examples and templates of common museum reports A source of answers and options for strategic planning questions A crib book to extract text when drafting internal proposals and plans A primer when welcoming new partners and Board members A quick study and refresher of key aspects of museum practice An orientation to new staff A glossary for building shared definition among team members The Museum Manager’s Compendium is for museum professionals—leaders, managers, coordinators, professional counsel, contractors, evaluators, supporters, and policy makers— to use often. It is a must-own reference book for every museum professional responsible for decisions and implementation.