Museum Studies An Anthology of Contexts

Bettina Messias Carbonell is Associate Professor of English and Program Coordinator for the interdisciplinary Humanities and Justice major at John Jay College, City University of New York. Her publications and current research focus on ethics, aesthetics, and the representation of history in literary texts and in museums.

Notes on Contributors xvi

Acknowledgments xxiv

Introduction to the Second Edition: Museum/Studies and the “Eccentric Space” of an Anthology – Revisited 1
Bettina M. Carbonell

Part I Museology: A Collection of Contexts 15

Introduction 15

1 From The Museum Age: Foreword 19
Germain Bazin

2 The Museum: Its Classical Etymology and Renaissance Genealogy 23
Paula Findlen

3 The Universal Survey Museum 46
Carol Duncan and Alan Wallach

4 Seeing Through Solidity: A Feminist Perspective on Museums 62
Gaby Porter

5 Universal Museums, Museum Objects and Repatriation: The Tangled Stories of Things 73
Neil G.W. Curtis

6 Narrativity and the Museological Myths of Nationality 82
Donald Preziosi

7 Museums, Civic Life, and the Educative Force of Remembrance 92
Roger I. Simon

8 The Memorial Museum Identity Complex: Victimhood, Culpability, and Responsibility 97
Paul Williams

9 At The Holocaust Museum 116
Alice Friman

Part II States of “Nature” in the Museum: Natural History, Anthropology, Ethnology 117

Introduction 117

10 To the Citizens of the United States of America 123
Charles Willson Peale

11 Letter of 1863 to Mr. Thomas G. Cary 125
Louis Agassiz

12 Museums of Ethnology and Their Classification 126
Franz Boas

13 “Magnificent Intentions”: Washington, D.C., and American Anthropology in 1846 129
Curtis M. Hinsley, Jr.

14 From Natural History to Science: Display and the Transformation of American Museums of Science and Nature 142
Karen A. Rader and Victoria E. M. Cain

15 The Development of Ethnological Museums 158
Robert Goldwater

16 Ethnology: A Science on Display 163
Fabrice Grognet

17 Ambiguous Messages and Ironic Twists: Into the Heart of Africa and The Other Museum 168
Enid Schildkrout

18 Thinking and Doing Otherwise: Anthropological Theory in Exhibitionary Practice 177
Mary Bouquet

19 The Mirror and the Tomb: Africa, Museums, and Memory 189
Françoise Lionnet

20 From Ethnology to Heritage: The Role of the Museum 199
Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett

21 The Pitt-Rivers Museum, Oxford 206
James Fenton

Part III The Status of Nations and the Museum 209

Introduction 209

22 From On the Museum of Art: An Address 213
J. C. Robinson

23 Presidential Address to the Museums Association, Maidstone Meeting, 1909 218
Henry Balfour

24 Addresses on the Occasion of the Opening of the American Wing, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (November 10, 1924) 225
Robert W. de Forest, Grosvenor Atterbury, and Elihu Root

25 The Architectural Museum from World’s Fair to Restoration Village 230
Edward N. Kaufman

26 Melodrama, Pantomime or Portrayal?: Representing Ourselves and the British Past through Exhibitions in History Museums 244
Gaynor Kavanagh

27 Artifacts as Expressions of Society and Culture: Subversive Genealogy and the Value of History 250
Mark P. Leone and Barbara J. Little

28 Museums and the Formation of National and Cultural Identities 260
Annie E. Coombes

29 Museums, National, Postnational and Transcultural Identities 273
Sharon J. Macdonald

30 Architecture and the Scene of Evidence 287
Catherine Ingraham

31 Some Thoughts about National Museums at the End of the Century 294
Roger G. Kennedy

Part IV Histories and Identities in the Museum 299

Introduction 299

32 Memory, Distortion, and History in the Museum 303
Susan A. Crane

33 Museum Matters 317
Gyan Prakash

34 Reality as Illusion, the Historic Houses that Become Museums 324
Mónica Risnicoff de Gorgas

35 Mining the Museum: Artists Look at Museums, Museums Look at Themselves 329
Lisa G. Corrin

36 The Afterlife of Lynching: Exhibitions and the Re-composition of Human Suffering 347
Bettina Messias Carbonell

37 Exhibiting Mestizaje: The Poetics and Experience of the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum 357
Karen Mary Davalos

38 Indigenous Models of Museums in Oceania 373
Sidney Moko Mead

39 Museums and the Native Voice 377
Gerald McMaster

40 Dangerous Heritage: Southern New Ireland, the Museum and the Display of the Past 383
Sean Kingston

41 Emerging Discourses around Identity in New South African Museum Exhibitions 397
Crain Soudien

Part V Art, Artifacts, and the Deployment of Objects in the Museum 407

Introduction 407

42 Aims and Principles of the Construction and Management of Museums of Fine Art 413
Benjamin Ives Gilman

43 The Museum as an Art Patron 421
John Cotton Dana

44 Cultural Entrepreneurship in Nineteenth-century Boston, Part II: The Classification and Framing of American Art 425
Paul DiMaggio

45 Picturing Feminism, Selling Liberalism: The Case of the Disappearing Holbein 442
Jordanna Bailkin

46 Conclusion to The Love of Art 453
Pierre Bourdieu and Alain Darbel, with Dominique Schnapper

47 Art and the Future’s Past 457
Philip Fisher

48 Museums Without Collections: Museum Philosophy in West Africa 473
Malcolm McLeod

49 Women at the Whitney, 1910–30: Feminism/Sociology/Aesthetics 478
Janet Wolff

50 From The Museum as Muse: Artists Reflect: Introduction 491
Kynaston McShine

51 Zero Gravity 503
Maurice Berger

52 Museums and Globalization 510
Saloni Mathur

53 Changing Values in the Art Museum: Rethinking Communication and Learning 517
Eilean Hooper-Greenhill

54 Technology Becomes the Object: The Use of Electronic Media at the National Museum of the American Indian 533
Gwyneira Isaac

Part VI In and Beyond the Museum: Relationships, Interactions, Responsibilities 547

Introduction 547

55 Museums, Corporatism and the Civil Society 549
Robert R. Janes

56 Museums as Agents of Social Inclusion 562
Richard Sandell

57 Partnership in Museums: A Tribal Maori Response to Repatriation 575
Paul Tapsell

58 Interactivity in Museums: The Politics of Narrative Style 580
Andrea Witcomb

59 Speaking about Museums: A Meditation on Language 590
Stephen E. Weil

Selected Bibliography 599

Source Acknowledgments 615

Index 620

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