Museums and Difference
Published on 26. December 2007
Book
Paperback/Softback
400 pages
978-0-253-21935-0 (ISBN)
Description
Museums, modern concepts of culture, and ideas about difference arose together and are inextricably entwined. Relationships of difference-notably, of gender, ethnicity, nationality, and race-have become equally important concerns of scholarship in humanities and contemporary museum practice. Museums and Difference offers the perspectives of scholars and museum professionals in tandem, using the concept of difference to reexamine how museums construct themselves, their collections, and their publics. Essays explore a wide range of examples from around the world and from the 19th century to the present, including case studies of special exhibitions as well as broad surveys of institutions in Europe, the United States, and Japan.
Reviews / Votes
". . . fascinating and probing treatments of issues that press on both museum workers and folklorists.October 15, 2008"-Lee Haring, Brooklyn College (Emeritus)"Museum and Difference is about the role that museums play in shaping the stories that we tell about who we are and how we are different from other people. It is an interesting subject.Jan. 23, 2009"-Matt Shinn, Museum Practice Magazine
"[D]emonstrates both the centrality and rapidly changing significance of difference in museum practice and poses a number of critical questions for future scholarship, such as, for example, whether or not aesthetic distinctions can ever be employed in museums in a manner that does not privilege the identity of one or another social group. -David O'Brien, University of Illinois at Urban"-Champaign
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Bloomington, IN
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
58 b&w photos
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 21 mm
Weight
605 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-253-21935-0 (9780253219350)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Daniel J. Sherman is Professor of History and Director of the Center for 21st Century Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. He is author of The Construction of Memory in Interwar France and editor (with Terry Nardin) of Terror, Culture, Politics (IUP, 2006).
Content
Contents
Acknowledgments
IntroductionDaniel J. Sherman
Part 1. Representing Difference
1. Art Museums and Commonality: A History of High IdealsAndrew McClellan
2. "The Last Wild Indian in North America": Changing Museum Representations of IshiIra Jacknis
3. National Museums and Other Cultures in Modern JapanAngus Lockyer
4. Cultural Difference and Cultural Diversity: The Case of the Musee du Quai BranlyNelia Dias
5. Gunther von Hagens's Body Worlds: Exhibitionary Practice, German History, and DifferencePeter M. McIsaac
Part 2. Representing Differently
6. Meta Warrick's 1907 "Negro Tableaux" and (Re)Presenting African American Historical MemoryW. Fitzhugh Brundage
7. Skulls on Display: The Science of Race in Paris's Musee de l'Homme, 1928-1950Alice L. Conklin
8. Dossier: "Inventing Race" in Los AngelesIlona Katzew and Daniel J. Sherman
9. Living and Dying: Ethnography, Class, and Aesthetics in the British MuseumLissant Bolton
10. Museums and Historical AmnesiaWilliam H. Truettner
Contributors
Index
Acknowledgments
IntroductionDaniel J. Sherman
Part 1. Representing Difference
1. Art Museums and Commonality: A History of High IdealsAndrew McClellan
2. "The Last Wild Indian in North America": Changing Museum Representations of IshiIra Jacknis
3. National Museums and Other Cultures in Modern JapanAngus Lockyer
4. Cultural Difference and Cultural Diversity: The Case of the Musee du Quai BranlyNelia Dias
5. Gunther von Hagens's Body Worlds: Exhibitionary Practice, German History, and DifferencePeter M. McIsaac
Part 2. Representing Differently
6. Meta Warrick's 1907 "Negro Tableaux" and (Re)Presenting African American Historical MemoryW. Fitzhugh Brundage
7. Skulls on Display: The Science of Race in Paris's Musee de l'Homme, 1928-1950Alice L. Conklin
8. Dossier: "Inventing Race" in Los AngelesIlona Katzew and Daniel J. Sherman
9. Living and Dying: Ethnography, Class, and Aesthetics in the British MuseumLissant Bolton
10. Museums and Historical AmnesiaWilliam H. Truettner
Contributors
Index