Museums and Difference
Published on 26. December 2007
Book
Hardback
400 pages
978-0-253-34946-0 (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
"Demonstrates 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 Urbana-ChampaignMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Bloomington, IN
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
58 b&w photos
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 156 mm
Weight
793 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-253-34946-0 (9780253349460)
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
Content
Introduction, Daniel J. Sherman Part 1. Representing Difference 1. Art Museums and Commonality: A History of High Ideals, Andrew McClellan; 2. "The Last Wild Indian in North America": Changing Museum Representations of Ishi, Ira Jacknis; 3. National Museums and Other Cultures in Modern Japan, Angus Lockyer; 4. Cultural Difference and Cultural Diversity: The Case of the Musee du Quai Branly, Nelia Dias; 5. Gunther von Hagens's Body Worlds: Exhibitionary Practice, German History, and Difference, Peter M. McIsaac Part 2. Representing Differently 6. Meta Warrick's 1907 "Negro Tableaux" and (Re)Presenting African American Historical Memory, W. Fitzhugh Brundage; 7. Skulls on Display: The Science of Race in Paris' Musee de l'Homme, 1928-1950, Alice L. Conklin; 8. Dossier: "Inventing Race" in Los Angeles, Ilona Katzew and Daniel J. Sherman; 9. Living and Dying: Ethnography, Class, and Aesthetics in the British Museum, Lissant Bolton; 10. Museums and Historical Amnesia, William H. Truettner