Download or read book Basements and Other Museums written by Vedran Husić and published by Black Lawrence Press, Incorporated. This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "With the precision of a surgeon and a poet's reverberant intelligence, Vedran Husic gives us stories of children growing up in war-ravaged Bosnia, a world of vanishing fathers, games invented around an alley sniper's bullets and the bittersweet aspirations of adolescent Bosnian immigrants and refugees in America. In taut yet voluptuous prose, with philosophic ferocity, BASEMENTS AND OTHER MUSEUMS marks the debut of a crucial new voice in contemporary fiction." -Melissa Pritchard "In an age of conformity, this is a writer who boldly stands apart. Language is unfixed. Time is stretched like taffy. The sniper's finger drifts to the trigger as the tale is told. When history, society, and culture conspire toward collapse, all we have left is language-Vedran Husic knows this. He is the natural heir to Bruno Schulz, Danilo Kis, Gombrovicz: stylists and story-tellers battered by war." -Matthew Neill Null

Download or read book Basements and Other Museums of Stillness written by Vedran Husic and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 111 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Set in the former Yugoslavia, contemporary Bosnia and Herzegovina, and midwest America, the collection of short stories follows the complicated trajectory of war-survivor to refugee and, then, immigrant. These stories---about religious prisoners who are not at all religious, about young, philosophizing boys tempting the bullets of snipers, about men retracing their fathers' steps over bridges that no longer exist---grapple with memory, imagination, and the nature of art, and explore the notion of writer as witness.

Download or read book Reculturing Museums written by Doris B. Ash and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2022-02-27 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Reculturing Museums takes a unified sociocultural theoretical approach to analyze the many conflicts museums experience in the 21st century. Embracing conflict, Ash asks: What can practitioners and researchers do to create the change they want to see when old systems remain stubbornly in place? Using a unified sociocultural, cultural-historical, activity-theoretical approach to analyzing historically bound conflicts that plague museums, each chapter is organized around a central contradiction, including finances ("Who will pay for museums?"), demographic shifts ("Who will come to museums?"), the roles of narratives ("Whose story is it?"), ownership of objects ("Who owns the artifact?"), and learning and teaching ("What is learning and how can we teach equitably?"). The reculturing stance taken by Ash promotes social justice and equity, ‘making change’ first, within museums, called inreach, rather than outside the museum, called outreach; challenges existing norms; is sensitive to neoliberal and deficit ideologies; and pays attention to the structure agency dialectic. Reculturing Museums will be essential reading for academics, students, museum practitioners, educational researchers, and others who care about museums and want to ensure that all people have equal access to the activities, objects, and ideas residing in them.

Download or read book Patterns in Practice written by Susan K Nichols and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-07 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This comprehensive anthology features 47 selected articles from the Journal of Museum Education plus ten new introductory essays by leaders in museum education and related fields. The articles and essays explore some of the fundamental issues concerning the role of education in museums today, from serving diverse communities to motivating visitors in an informal learning setting. The book is divided into five sections which 1) trace the evolution of the museum education profession; 2) explore the field's theoretical base; 3) consider methods of research used; 4) provide examples of how theory is translated into practice; and 5) summarize issues relating to professional development. Sponsored by the Museum Education Roundtable

Download or read book Museums of Communism written by Stephen M. Norris and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2020-11-03 with total page 381 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How did communities come to terms with the collapse of communism? In order to guide the wider narrative, many former communist countries constructed museums dedicated to chronicling their experiences. Museums of Communism explores the complicated intersection of history, commemoration, and victimization made evident in these museums constructed after 1991. While contributors from a diverse range of fields explore various museums and include nearly 90 photographs, a common denominator emerges: rather than focusing on artifacts and historical documents, these museums often privilege memories and stories. In doing so, the museums shift attention from experiences of guilt or collaboration to narratives of shared victimization under communist rule. As editor Stephen M. Norris demonstrates, these museums are often problematic at best and revisionist at worst. From occupation museums in the Baltic States to memorial museums in Ukraine, former secret police prisons in Romania, and nostalgic museums of everyday life in Russia, the sites considered offer new ways of understanding the challenges of separating memory and myth.

Download or read book Patterns in Practice written by Museum Education Roundtable and published by Routledge. This book was released on 1992 with total page 416 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the second anthology of the "Journal of Museum Education." This edition reflects the maturation of the field of museum education, reports on its evolution, and reminds the reader of the diversity to be found in the field. Introspective essays by numerous authors challenge museum educators to reexamine their goals, attitudes, work, and audiences they serve. Divided into the following five sections, some essays include: Section 1, "Coming of Age:""The Museum's Role in a Multicultural Society" (Brown); "Afro-American Museums: A Future Full of Promise" (Dickerson); "To Realize Our Museums' Full Potential" (Madden); "Professional Standards for Museum Educators 'American Association of Museums Standing Professional Committee on Education' Preface" (Williams); Section 2,"Reflecting on Things and Theory:""Object Knowledge: Every Museum Visitor an Interpreter" (Schlereth); "Vision and Culture: The Role of Museums in Visual Literacy" (Rice); "Naive Notions and the Design of Science Museum Exhibits" (Borun); "Passionate and Purposeful: Adult Learning Communities" (Baldwin et al); "Sending Them Home Alive" (Olds); Section 3: "Considering the Museum Experience:""New Directions for Research" (Diamond); "Visitor Participation in Formative Exhibit Evaluation" (McNamara); "The Family Museum Experience: Implications from Research" and "Afterword" (Dierking); "Understanding Demographic Data on 200 Visitors" (Birney, Heinrich); Section 4: "Putting Plans into Practice:""Ideas on Informal Learning and Teaching" (Mayer); "Decentralizing Interpretation: Developing Museum Education Materials with and for Schools" (O'Connell); "Education Programs for Older Adults" and "Afterword" (Sharpe); "Learning about Reptiles and Amphibians: A Family Experience" (White, Marcellini, Barry); "Theater Techniques in an Aquarium or a Natural History Museum" (Rutowski); and Section 5: "Thinking about Ourselves and Our Field:""Your Private Temple: Fighting Change" (Muhlberger); "Concept, Method, and Professional Exchange" (Matelic); and "Preparation for Empowerment." Each section contains an introductory essay, followed by essays with varied perspectives on the theme of the section. (EH)

Download or read book The Evolution of Library and Museum Partnerships written by Lisa Gottlieb and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2004-11-30 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: These authors examine the unique social roles of libraries and museums, review historical precedents as well as library-museum partnerships funded in recent years through IMLS grants, and forge an exciting vision of a new library-museum hybrid. The juxtaposition of library collections and museum artifacts, they assert, has the potential to create authentic, interactive experiences for community members, and it can help establish a distinct, meaningful, and sustainable role for libraries. In the authors' words, libraries can then reassert themselves as places devoted to contemplation, wonder, knowledge acquisition, and critical inquiry. Commercialization, edutainment, and the library as a learning community are just some of the fascinating topics addressed as the authors explore the future's terrain, and suggest how libraries might situate themselves upon it. Libraries, museums, and the ways in which they are used by patrons have drastically changed in past decades. Digitization projects, infotainment, and the Internet are redefining the library's and the museum's roles in the community. What are the implications for the future of these institutions? These authors examine the unique social roles of libraries and museums, review historical precedents as well as library-museum partnerships funded in recent years through IMLS grants, and forge an exciting vision of a new library-museum hybrid. The juxtaposition of library collections and museum artifacts, they assert, has the potential to create authentic, interactive experiences for community members, and it can help establish a distinct, meaningful, and sustainable role for libraries. In the authors' words, libraries can then reassert themselves as places devoted to contemplation, wonder, knowledge acquisition, and critical inquiry. Commercialization, edutainment, and the library as a learning community are just some of the fascinating topics addressed as the authors explore the future's terrain, and suggest how libraries might situate themselves upon it.

Download or read book The Museum written by Samuel J Redman and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2022-05-03 with total page 195 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Celebrates the resilience of American cultural institutions in the face of national crises and challenges On an afternoon in January 1865, a roaring fire swept through the Smithsonian Institution. Dazed soldiers and worried citizens could only watch as the flames engulfed the museum’s castle. Rare objects and valuable paintings were destroyed. The flames at the Smithsonian were not the first—and certainly would not be the last— disaster to upend a museum in the United States. Beset by challenges ranging from pandemic and war to fire and economic uncertainty, museums have sought ways to emerge from crisis periods stronger than before, occasionally carving important new paths forward in the process. The Museum explores the concepts of “crisis” as it relates to museums, and how these historic institutions have dealt with challenges ranging from depression and war to pandemic and philosophical uncertainty. Fires, floods, and hurricanes have all upended museum plans and forced people to ask difficult questions about American cultural life. With chapters exploring World War I and the 1918 influenza pandemic, the Great Depression, World War II, the 1970 Art Strike in New York City, and recent controversies in American museums, this book takes a new approach to understanding museum history. By diving deeper into the changes that emerged from these key challenges, Samuel J. Redman argues that cultural institutions can—and should— use their history to prepare for challenges and solidify their identity going forward. A captivating examination of crisis moments in US museum history from the early years of the twentieth century to the present day, The Museum offers inspiration in the resilience and longevity of America’s most prized cultural institutions.

Download or read book Lost in the Museum written by Nancy Moses and published by Rowman Altamira. This book was released on 2008 with total page 184 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Few beyond the insider realize that museums own millions of objects the public never sees. In Lost in the Museum, Nancy Moses takes the reader behind the Oemployees onlyO doors to uncover the stories buried--along with the objects--in the crypts of museums, historical societies, and archives. Moses discovers the actual birds shot, stuffed, and painted by John James Audubon, AmericaOs most beloved bird artist; a spear that abolitionist John Brown carried in his quixotic quest to free the slaves; and the skull of a prehistoric Peruvian child who died with scurvy. She takes the reader to Ker-Feal, the secret farmhouse that Albert Barnes of the Barnes Foundation filled with fabulous American antiques and that was then left untouched for more than fifty years. Weaving the stories of the object, its original owner, and the often idiosyncratic institution where the object resides, the book reveals the darkest secret of the cultural world: the precarious balance of art, culture, and politics that keep items, for decades, lost in the museum.

Download or read book Treasures in the Basement written by Ann M. Stone and published by . This book was released on 2002 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surveys suggest that 72% of U.S. museum artworks reside in museum storerooms. Despite the legitimate reasons for housing artworks in storage, there is recognition within the museum community that much of what resides in museum storerooms is not advancing institutional missions in a meaningful way. Meanwhile, the cost of maintaining artworks in storage is considerable and increasing. Four questions guide this investigation: (1) What factors explain the large proportion of museum artworks in storage? (2) What are the options for reducing storage and/or increasing the utilization of stored artworks? (3) What are the constraints and opportunities associated with the different options? (4) What policies contribute to current levels of collection storage and utilization, and what policies would encourage change? The research approach involves a synthesis of museum literature and industry statistics; a conceptual framework for structuring the analysis; a case study for exploring collection utilization decisions in a real-world context; and a policy analysis.

Download or read book The Secret Museum written by Molly Oldfield and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'The Secret Museum' is a treasure trove of the most intriguing artifacts hidden away in museum archives from all over the world - curated, brought to light, and brought to life by Molly Oldfield in an illustrated collection.

Download or read book White Flights written by Jess Row and published by Graywolf Press. This book was released on 2019-08-06 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A bold, incisive look at race and reparative writing in American fiction, by the author of Your Face in Mine White Flights is a meditation on whiteness in American fiction and culture from the end of the civil rights movement to the present. At the heart of the book, Jess Row ties “white flight”—the movement of white Americans into segregated communities, whether in suburbs or newly gentrified downtowns—to white writers setting their stories in isolated or emotionally insulated landscapes, from the mountains of Idaho in Marilynne Robinson’s Housekeeping to the claustrophobic households in Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections. Row uses brilliant close readings of work from well-known writers such as Don DeLillo, Annie Dillard, Richard Ford, and David Foster Wallace to examine the ways these and other writers have sought imaginative space for themselves at the expense of engaging with race. White Flights aims to move fiction to a more inclusive place, and Row looks beyond criticism to consider writing as a reparative act. What would it mean, he asks, if writers used fiction “to approach each other again”? Row turns to the work of James Baldwin, Dorothy Allison, and James Alan McPherson to discuss interracial love in fiction, while also examining his own family heritage as a way to interrogate his position. A moving and provocative book that includes music, film, and literature in its arguments, White Flights is an essential work of cultural and literary criticism.

Download or read book The Lost Species written by Christopher Kemp and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2020-11-25 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We hear routinely about dinosaurs unearthed in the Gobi Desert, about new marsupials found in the forests of Madagascar, about darling deep sea squid in the polar regions. These discoveries tend to be accompanied by wondrous feats of adventuring scientists. But just as one can experience the world in a backyard, or farther reaches of the world with a good book and a comfy armchair, scientists themselves know that the natural history museums of the world contain some of the best terrain for discovering new species. In recent years scientists have found in museum drawers and cabinets a new rove beetle collected by Darwin, a tiny lungless salamander thinner than a matchstick, a monkey from the Brazilian rainforest, and a 40 million year old beardog. The Lost Species shares the thrill of spelunking in museum basements, digging in museum trays, and breathing new life in taxidermied beings--a in a days' adventure for the scientists in this book. These discoveries help tell the story of life, and the priceless collections of natural history museums.

Download or read book An Empire of Others written by Roland Cvetkovski and published by Central European University Press. This book was released on 2014-01-10 with total page 415 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ethnographers helped to perceive, to understand and also to shape imperial as well as Soviet Russia's cultural diversity. This volume focuses on the contexts in which ethnographic knowledge was created. Usually, ethnographic findings were superseded by imperial discourse: Defining regions, connecting them with ethnic origins and conceiving national entities necessarily implied the mapping of political and historical hierarchies. But beyond these spatial conceptualizations the essays particularly address the specific conditions in which ethnographic knowledge appeared and changed. On the one hand, they turn to the several fields into which ethnographic knowledge poured and materialized, i.e., history, historiography, anthropology or ideology. On the other, they equally consider the impact of the specific formats, i.e., pictures, maps, atlases, lectures, songs, museums, and exhibitions, on academic as well as non-academic manifestations.

Download or read book Inside the Egyptian Museum with Zahi Hawass written by Zahi A. Hawass and published by American Univ in Cairo Press. This book was released on 2010 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Egyptian Museum houses the world's greatest collection of Egyptian treasures and antiquities, tens of thousands of stunning and fascinating objects dating from the earliest Predynastic times right through to the Greek and Roman Periods. Visitors to this great storehouse may become easily overwhelmed by the vast number of objects on display. But here for the first time is the world's best-known Egyptologist's personal introduction to the unmissable highlights of the Museum--Zahi Hawass's own selection of his favorite 200 exhibits. For each piece, he gives some background to its discovery and significance, and describes what it means for him in terms of the art or the history of ancient Egypt, and why it strikes a personal chord. "Due to my love of the Egyptian Museum, I thought that it would be wonderful to write a guide to its treasures, and to talk about my favorite objects within."--Zahi Hawass

Download or read book Riches Rivals and Radicals written by Marjorie Schwarzer and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2020-10-07 with total page 293 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since it was first published in 2006, Riches, Rivals and Radicals has been the go-to text for introductory museum studies courses. It is also of great value to professionals as well as museum lovers who want to learn the stories behind how and why these institutions have evolved since the day the first mastodon bones, royal portraits and botanical specimens entered their halls. For this third edition, Marjorie Schwarzer has mined new resources, previously unavailable archives and contemporary trends to provide a fresh look at the challenges and innovations that have shaped museums in the United States. Schwarzer argues that museums are fundamentally optimistic institutions. They build and preserve some of the nation’s most extraordinary architecture. They showcase the beauty and promise of new scientific discoveries, historical breakthroughs and artistic creation. They provide places of inspiration and repose. At the same time, museums have succeeded in exposing some of the nation’s most painful legacies – racism, inequity, violence – as they strive to be places for healing and reckoning. This too, one could argue, is an act of optimism, for it expresses the hope that museum visitors will gain empathy and understanding from the evidence of others’ struggles. Schwarzer shows us how museums are rooted in a contentious history tied to social, technological and economic trends and ultimately changing ideas of what it means to be a citizen. Along the way we meet some notorious and eccentric characters including business tycoons, architects, collectors, designers, politicians, political activists and progressive educators, all of whom have exerted their influence on what is a complex yet nonetheless enduring institution. Major additions since the last edition include material on digital curation, emergent exhibitions about civil rights, immersive museum environments, continuing efforts to diversify the field, how museums' role in our increasingly digital society, and a new foreword by American Alliance of Museums President and CEO Laura L. Lott. Museums new to this edition include the National Museum of African American History and Culture, the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, and the 9/11 Memorial and Museum. Beautifully written and lavishly illustrated, the third edition of this accessible, award-winning book brings the reader up to date on the stories behind the people and events that have transformed America’s museums from their beginnings into today’s vibrant cultural institutions.

Download or read book Annual Report of the Board of Regents of the Smithsonian Institution written by Smithsonian Institution. Board of Regents and published by . This book was released on 1896 with total page 970 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: