(photo courtesy of the Waterford Museum) When considering museums that tell the story of immigration, institutions like The Lower East Side Tenement Museum often come to mind. Often overlooked are smaller, local institutions that seek to tell the immigrant stories of their community and tie them to the greater national narrative. These exhibits can facilitate […]
Read more "Starting with a Question: “Making Waterford Our Home”"Thinking more about our discussion on Tuesday, and having read this New York Times article and the reactions to it, I want to explore the topic of “ownership” of the Holocaust a little more. I am increasingly frustrated with the point of view that any one group should “own” history. It is critical that we […]
Read more "Who Owns History?"Is a museum a place where cultures go to die, or where they go to live? According to James Clifford, the answer is increasingly the latter. Museums are becoming places of cultural exchange, reciprocity, and contest. They are becoming contact zones, where cultures enter into ongoing relationships. According to Clifford, “When museums are seen as […]
Read more "Creating the Future Through the Past"There are elves hidden in the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. They live amongst white-tailed deer, pronghorns, and blue herons in the museum’s dioramas. Some hide in trees, while one is perched on a dinosaur’s back. But all of these elves are the creation of one man – artist Kent R. Pendleton. According to […]
Read more "Hidden Elves in Denver: The Artistry of the Museum Diorama"Museum exhibits have a purpose: they tell a story, they teach you something, and they make you think. Behind the scenes at a museum, people are working to help us learn and understand this story, but who should decide what we should learn from a museum? This question becomes even more complicated when we consider […]
Read more "Displaying Ethnographic Objects"One more point that struck me as I was reading Nickel and Dimed was the similarities between low-income workers and museums. Ehrenreich points out over and over how there is simply an imbalance in the amount of money earned and the amount of amount of money needed to survive. During my thesis research I looked […]
Read more "Similar Bank Accounts"It’s our first day and we’re thinking about the ways we might apply our knowledge of the history of race, class, and gender to our careers as museum professionals.
Read more "Are museums inclusive of all points of view?"This course examines representations of class, race, and gender in American culture from 1900 to the present. Its primary objective is to introduce students to a range of nonfiction and fiction works that explore one or more of these key concepts. Engaging with the texts in this course will provide the basis for a rich […]
Read more "Class, Race, and Gender"
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