Theorizing Archaeological Museum Studies

Theorizing Archaeological Museum Studies
Author: Monika Stobiecka
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 155
Release: 2023-06-01
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1000889270

Theorizing Archaeological Museum Studies works towards reconnecting archaeological practice, the theoretical richness of archaeology, and museum studies. The book therefore embraces both the practical aspects of archaeology and empirical studies in museums in order to rethink what happens when an artefact changes into an exhibit. This study is positioned at the intersection of both history and archaeological theory, and of the history of art and museum studies. The central focus of this book explores the relationship between museums and their dominant paradigms, on the one hand, and new approaches and theories in archaeology, on the other. It thus also illustrates the co-dependencies, relations and tensions that characterize the relationship between academia and museums. This book demonstrates how in becoming exhibits, artefacts have – and continue to – become reflections of the discipline’s prevailing paradigms while manifesting the dominant aims and methods of knowledge production pertaining at a given time and place, as well as the desired social interpretations and modes of presenting the past. Theorizing Archaeological Museum Studies offers important insights for academics and students (archaeology, heritage studies, museum studies) as well as for practitioners (museum employees, heritage practitioners). The book is also intended for scholars from across the humanities interested in museum studies, heritage studies, curatorial studies, cultural studies, cultural geography, material culture, history of archaeology, archaeological theory, and the anthropology of things.

The Routledge International Handbook of Heritage and Politics

The Routledge International Handbook of Heritage and Politics
Author: Gönül Bozoğlu
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Total Pages: 597
Release: 2024-04-02
Genre: Art
ISBN: 1040003729

The Routledge International Handbook of Heritage and Politics surveys the intersection of heritage and politics today and helps elucidate the political implications of heritage practices. It explicitly addresses the political and analyses tensions and struggles over the distribution of power. Including contributions from early-career scholars and more established researchers, the Handbook provides global and interdisciplinary perspectives on the political nature, significance and consequence of heritage and the various practices of management and interpretation. Taking a broad view of heritage, which includes not just tangible and intangible phenomena, but the ways in which people and societies live with, embody, experience, value and use the past, the volume provides a critical survey of political tensions over heritage in diverse social and cultural contexts. Chapters within the book consider topics such as: neoliberal dynamics; terror and mobilisations of fear and hatred; old and new nationalisms; public policy; recognition; denials; migration and refugeeism; crises; colonial and decolonial practice; communities; self- and personhood; as well as international relations, geopolitics, soft power and cooperation to address global problems. The Routledge International Handbook of Heritage and Politics makes an intervention into the theoretical debate about the nature and role of heritage as a political resource. It is essential reading for academics and students working in heritage studies, museum studies, politics, memory studies, public history, geography, urban studies and tourism.

Unruly Heritage

Unruly Heritage
Author: Bjørnar Julius Olsen
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Total Pages: 305
Release: 2024-10-17
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1350426377

Heritage is almost univocally conceived of as valuable and good, something we care for and preserve for ourselves and future generations. Although traditionally associated with the unique and monumental, heritage has over the last decades been broadened in response to claims to incorporate more diverse and globally representative legacies. While such claims are of course welcome, they do not embrace the bulging unruly and obnoxious legacies that now haunt us; legacies that have become so conspicuously manifest that they are claimed as diagnostic of a new epoch, the Anthropocene. This book targets this exclusion. It claims that the current 'clash' between prevailing conceptions of heritage as something confined, wished for and thus worth saving, and the unruly legacies ignoring such work of purification, urges a reconsideration of strategies and rationales for how to 'deal with' heritage. Through multidisciplinary approaches, ranging from archaeology and heritage studies to philosophy and environmental politics, the contributions bring heritage into dialogue with a wide range of topics including industrialisation, material profusion, modernist architectural material, coastal reclamations, barbed wire, and naval mines. The result is a volume that profoundly challenges traditional understandings of heritage as an exclusive reserve of things selected and managed by us.

Unquiet Pasts

Unquiet Pasts
Author: Stephanie Koerner
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 424
Release: 2016-12-05
Genre: Science
ISBN: 1351876678

This important book addresses critical themes in the development of archaeology as a reflexive, self-critical discipline in the modern world. It explores the ethical, political and cultural tensions and responsibilities which need to be addressed by archaeologists when working within networks of global ecologies and communities, examining how authoritarian traditions can exacerbate the divide between expert and public knowledge. Moreover, it analyses how localized acts of archaeology relate to changing conceptions of risk, heritage, culture, identity, and conflict. Bringing insights from Alain Schnapp, Michael Shanks, Isabelle Stengers, Bruno Latour, Ulrich Beck, John Urry and others to cross-disciplinary discussions of these themes, Unquiet Pasts shows how archaeological discourse can contribute towards engaging and understanding current dilemmas. It also shows how archaeology, as a localized and responsibly exercised practice, can play a part in building our commonly shared and experienced world.

Debating Archaeological Empiricism

Debating Archaeological Empiricism
Author: Charlotta Hillerdal
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 231
Release: 2015-03-05
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 1317800745

Debating Archaeological Empiricism examines the current intellectual turn in archaeology, primarily in its prehistoric and classical branches, characterized by a return to the archaeological evidence. Each chapter in the book approaches the empirical from a different angle, illuminating contemporary views and uses of the archaeological material in interpretations and theory building. The inclusion of differing perspectives in this collection mirrors the conceptual landscape that characterizes the discipline, contributing to the theoretical debate in archaeology and classical studies. As well as giving an important snapshot of the practical as well as theoretical uses of materiality in archaeologies today, this volume looks to the future of archaeology as an empirical discipline.

The International Handbooks of Museum Studies, 4 Volume Set

The International Handbooks of Museum Studies, 4 Volume Set
Author: Sharon Macdonald
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 2813
Release: 2015-07-20
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1405198508

The International Handbooks of Museum Studies is a multi-volume reference work that represents a state-of-the-art survey of the burgeoning field of museum studies. Featuring original essays by leading international museum experts and emerging scholars, readings cover all aspects of museum theory, practice, debates, and the impact of technologies. The four volumes in the series, divided thematically, offer in-depth treatment of all major issues relating to museum theory; historical and contemporary museum practice; mediations in art, design, and architecture; and the transformations and challenges confronting the museum. In addition to invaluable surveys of current scholarship, the entries include a rich and diverse panoply of examples and original case studies to illuminate the various perspectives. Unprecedented for its in-depth topic coverage and breadth of scholarship, the multi-volume International Handbooks of Museum Studies is an indispensable resource for the study of the development, roles, and significance of museums in contemporary society.

Theorizing Museums

Theorizing Museums
Author: Sharon Macdonald
Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
Total Pages: 244
Release: 1998-06-29
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780631201519

Museums are key cultural loci of our times. They are symbols and sites for the playing out of social relations of identity and difference, knowledge and power, theory and representation. These are issues at the heart of contemporary anthropology, sociology and cultural studies. This volume brings together original contributions from international scholars to show how social and cultural theory can bring new insight to debate about museums. Analytical perspectives on the museum are drawn from the anthropology and sociology of globalization, time, space and consumption, as well as from feminism, psychoanalysis, experimental ethnography and literary theory. These perspectives are brought to bear on questions of museums' changing role and position in the representation of the nation-state, of community, and of gender, class and ethnicity. The examples in this book are drawn from different kinds of museum around the world, and include significant controversial and experimental exhibitions; the Enola Gay at the Smithsonian; feminist exhibitions in Scandinavia; the National Museum of Sri Lanka; Victorian art at the Tate; the representation of race at Colonial Williamsburg and of colonialism and identity in Canada.

Reader in Archaeological Theory

Reader in Archaeological Theory
Author: David S. Whitley
Publisher: Psychology Press
Total Pages: 370
Release: 1998
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780415141604

This Reader in Archaeological Theory presents sixteen articles of key theoretical significance, in a format which makes this notoriously complex area easier for students to understand. This volume: * provides an intellectual history of different approaches to archaeology which contextualizes the complex traditions of cognitive archaeology and postprocessualism on which it focuses * organizes theories of archaeology, the meanings of things, the prehistoric mind and cognition, gender, ideology and social theory and archaeology's relationship to today's society and politics * includes lucid section introductions to each section which provide context, explain why the papers are so significant and summarize their key points * emphasizes research from the 'New World', making archaeological theory especially relevant and accessible to students in North America

Museum Theory

Museum Theory
Author: Andrea Witcomb
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 648
Release: 2020-11-17
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1119796555

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.

Theory in Archaeology

Theory in Archaeology
Author: Peter J. Ucko
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 413
Release: 2005-08-10
Genre: Education
ISBN: 113484347X

A unique volume that brings together contributors from all over the world to provide the first truly global perspective on archaeological theory, and tackle the crucial questions facing archaeology in the 1990s. Can one practice without theory?