Download or read book Religious Objects in Museums written by Crispin Paine and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2020-05-14 with total page 150 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the past, museums often changed the meaning of icons or statues of deities from sacred to aesthetic, or used them to declare the superiority of Western society, or simply as cultural and historical evidence. The last generation has seen faith groups demanding to control 'their' objects, and curators recognising that objects can only be understood within their original religious context. In recent years there has been an explosion of interest in the role religion plays in museums, with major exhibitions highlighting the religious as well as the historical nature of objects.Using examples from all over the world, Religious Objects in Museums is the first book to examine how religious objects are transformed when they enter the museum, and how they affect curators and visitors. It examines the full range of meanings that religious objects may bear - as scientific specimen, sacred icon, work of art, or historical record. Showing how objects may be used to argue a point, tell a story or promote a cause, may be worshipped, ignored, or seen as dangerous or unlucky, this highly accessible book is an essential introduction to the subject.
Download or read book Creating the Creation Museum written by Kathleen C. Oberlin and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2020-12-15 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Investigates how the Christian fundamentalist movement brings Creationism into the mainstream through a Kentucky museum In Creating the Creation Museum, Kathleen C. Oberlin shows us how the largest Creationist organization, Answers in Genesis (AiG), built a museum—which has had over three million visitors—to make its movement mainstream. She takes us behind the scenes, vividly bringing the museum to life by detailing its infamous exhibits on human fossils, dinosaur remains, and more. Drawing on over three years of research at the Creation Museum, where she was granted rare access to AiG’s leadership, Oberlin examines how the museum convincingly reframes scientific facts, such as modeling itself on traditional natural history museums. Through a unique historical dataset of over 1,000 internal documents from creationist organizations and an analysis of media coverage, Creating the Creation Museum shows how the museum works as a site of social movement activity and a place to contest the secular mainstream. Oberlin ultimately argues that the Creation Museum has real-world consequences in today’s polarized era.
Download or read book Sacred Objects in Secular Spaces written by Bruce M. Sullivan and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2015-10-22 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We have long recognized that many objects in museums were originally on display in temples, shrines, or monasteries, and were religiously significant to the communities that created and used them. How, though, are such objects to be understood, described, exhibited, and handled now that they are in museums? Are they still sacred objects, or formerly sacred objects that are now art objects, or are they simultaneously objects of religious and artistic significance, depending on who is viewing the object? These objects not only raise questions about their own identities, but also about the ways we understand the religious traditions in which these objects were created and which they represent in museums today. Bringing together religious studies scholars and museum curators, Sacred Objects in Secular Spaces is the first volume to focus on Asian religions in relation to these questions. The contributors analyze an array of issues related to the exhibition in museums of objects of religious significance from Hindu, Buddhist, and Sikh traditions. The “lives” of objects are considered, along with the categories of “sacred” and “profane”, “religious” and “secular”. As interest in material manifestations of religious ideas and practices continues to grow, Sacred Objects in Secular Spaces is a much-needed contribution to religious and Asian studies, anthropology of religion and museums studies.
Download or read book Museums of World Religions written by Charles Orzech and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2020-05-14 with total page 225 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critically examining the notion of 'world religions', Charles D. Orzech compares five purpose-built museums of world religions and their online extensions. Inspired by the 19th and 20th century discipline of comparative religion, these museums seek to promote religious tolerance by representing religious diversity and by arguing for underlying kinship among religions. From locations in Europe (Marburg, Glasgow and St Petersburg), to North America (Quebec) to Asia (Taipei), each museum advances a particular cultural history. This book shows how the curation of the objects they contain shapes public perceptions of religion, giving material form to the discourses about religion and world religions. Raising important questions about religion and secularity, museum displays and religious piety, Museums of World Religions questions the ideology that informs these museums. Building on recent anthropological work on the agency of religious objects, the author critiques these museums and suggests new approaches to displaying the matter of religion.
Download or read book Godly Things written by Crispin Paine and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2000-01-01 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although museums and art galleries are often compared in role and function to shrines and temples, religion itself has mostly been ignored in museums, even those displaying works originally created for purely religious purposes. In recent years, however, there has been increased interest in the study of spiritual values, particularly those of non-Western cultures. Fourteen contributors from museums and universities worldwide look at the themes and artifacts of religion and examine how museums handle and present this subject, which although often difficult to grasp has pervaded every human society. The first three chapters examine, from different perspectives, the principal religious themes and rituals. Then, a series of chapters looks at how religions-from Methodism to Voodou-have been presented in museums, from Belfast to Taiwan. This book will be essential reading for all who work in museums as curators, conservators, or exhibition designers; it will be equally important for students of religion, art history, and cultural>
Download or read book Science Magic and Religion written by Mary Bouquet and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2005 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Exploring the idea of the museum as a ritual site, this volume looks at contemporary experience across Europe and Africa to reveal the different ways in which various actors involved in cultural production dramatize and ritualize such places
Download or read book Experiencing Materiality written by Valentina Gamberi and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2021-02-03 with total page 197 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Representing a cutting-edge study of the junction between theoretical anthropology, material culture studies, religious studies and museum anthropology, this study examines the interaction between the human and the nonhuman in a museum setting usually defined as ‘non-Western’, ‘non-scientific’ and ‘religious.’ Combining an on-site analysis of exhibitive spaces with archival research and interviews with museum curators, the chapters highlight contradictions of museum practices, and suggests that museum practitioners use museum spaces and artefacts as a way of formulating new theoretical stances in material culture studies, thus viewing museums as producers of theories together with affective engagements.
Download or read book Interpreting Religion at Museums and Historic Sites written by Gretchen Buggeln and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2018-08-22 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interpreting Religion at Museums and Historic Sitesencourages readers to consider the history of religion as integral to American culture and provides a practical guide for any museum to include interpretation of religious traditions in its programs and exhibits. Combining both theoretical essays and practical case studies from a wide cross section of the field, the book explores how museums are finding new ways to connect with audiences about this important aspect of American history. This book explores the practical and interpretive problems that museums encounter when they include religion in their interpretation: How do we make sure visitors don't think the museum is taking the side of any particular religious group, or proselytizing, or crossing church-state boundaries? How do we spin out a rich story with the available artifact base? What are the opportunities and perils of telling particular religious stories in a multicultural context? These and other questions are addressed in a series of interpretive essays and case studies that capture the experimental and innovative religion programming that is beginning to find a place in American history museums. An introduction by Gretchen Buggeln places the subject of religion and museums in the intellectual context of national and international scholarship. Case studies cover a range of topics and venues that include outdoor museums, historic houses and exhibits; interpretive issues of secular and sacred contexts; and interpretive techniques like dialogue, music and first person accounts. A concluding essay suggests a publicly oriented historiography of religion for American museums and historic sites.
Download or read book Picturing the Bible written by Jeffrey Spier and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2007-01-01 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Published on the occasion of the exhibition organized by the Kimbell Art Museum and shown there November 18, 2007 - March 30, 2008.
Download or read book Bible Nation written by Candida R. Moss and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2019-07-16 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How the billionaire owners of Hobby Lobby are spending hundreds of millions of dollars to make America a “Bible nation” The Greens of Oklahoma City—the billionaire owners of the Hobby Lobby chain of craft stores—are spending hundreds of millions of dollars in an ambitious effort to increase the Bible’s influence on American society. In Bible Nation, Candida Moss and Joel Baden provide the first in-depth investigative account of the Greens’ sweeping Bible projects. Moss and Baden tell the story of the Greens’ efforts to place a Bible curriculum in public schools; their rapid acquisition of an unparalleled collection of biblical antiquities; their creation of a closely controlled group of scholars to study and promote the collection; and their construction of a $500 million Museum of the Bible in Washington, D.C. Revealing how all these initiatives promote a very particular set of beliefs about the Bible, the book raises serious questions about the trade in biblical antiquities, the integrity of academic research, and the place of private belief in public life.
Download or read book Righting America at the Creation Museum written by Susan L. Trollinger and published by JHU Press. This book was released on 2016-05-15 with total page 340 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What does the popularity of the Creation Museum tell us about the appeal of the Christian right? On May 28, 2007, the Creation Museum opened in Petersburg, Kentucky. Aimed at scientifically demonstrating that the universe was created less than ten thousand years ago by a Judeo-Christian god, the museum is hugely popular, attracting millions of visitors over the past eight years. Surrounded by themed topiary gardens and a petting zoo with camel rides, the site conjures up images of a religious Disneyland. Inside, visitors are met by dinosaurs at every turn and by a replica of the Garden of Eden that features the Tree of Life, the serpent, and Adam and Eve. In Righting America at the Creation Museum, Susan L. Trollinger and William Vance Trollinger, Jr., take readers on a fascinating tour of the museum. The Trollingers vividly describe and analyze its vast array of exhibits, placards, dioramas, and videos, from the Culture in Crisis Room, where videos depict sinful characters watching pornography or considering abortion, to the Natural Selection Room, where placards argue that natural selection doesn’t lead to evolution. The book also traces the rise of creationism and the history of fundamentalism in America. This compelling book reveals that the Creation Museum is a remarkably complex phenomenon, at once a “natural history” museum at odds with contemporary science, an extended brief for the Bible as the literally true and errorless word of God, and a powerful and unflinching argument on behalf of the Christian right.
Download or read book On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art written by James Elkins and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-12-15 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Can contemporary art say anything about spirituality? John Updike calls modern art "a religion assembled from the fragments of our daily life," but does that mean that contemporary art is spiritual? What might it mean to say that the art you make expresses your spiritual belief? On the Strange Place of Religion in Contemporary Art explores the curious disconnection between spirituality and current art. This book will enable you to walk into a museum and talk about the spirituality that is or is not visible in the art you see.
Download or read book Religion in Museums written by Gretchen Buggeln and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2017-02-23 with total page 297 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Bringing together scholars and practitioners from North America, Europe, Russia, and Australia, this pioneering volume provides a global survey of how museums address religion and charts a course for future research and interpretation. Contributors from a variety of disciplines and institutions explore the work of museums from many perspectives, including cultural studies, religious studies, and visual and material culture. Most museums throughout the world – whether art, archaeology, anthropology or history museums – include religious objects, and an increasing number are beginning to address religion as a major category of human identity. With rising museum attendance and the increasingly complex role of religion in social and geopolitical realities, this work of stewardship and interpretation is urgent and important. Religion in Museums is divided into six sections: museum buildings, reception, objects, collecting and research, interpretation of objects and exhibitions, and the representation of religion in different types of museums. Topics covered include repatriation, conservation, architectural design, exhibition, heritage, missionary collections, curation, collections and display, and the visitor's experience. Case studies provide comprehensive coverage and range from museums devoted specifically to the diversity of religious traditions, such as the State Museum of the History of Religion in St Petersburg, to exhibitions centered on religion at secular museums, such as Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam, at the British Museum.
Download or read book The Witness as Object written by Steffi de Jong and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2018-01-31 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Today more than ever before, the historical witness is now a “museum objectâ€_x009d_ in the form of video interviews with individuals remembering events of historical importance. Such video testimonies now not only are part of the collections and research activities of museums, but become deeply intertwined with narrative and exhibit design. With a focus on Holocaust museums, this study scrutinizes for the first time this new global process of “musealisationâ€_x009d_ of testimony, exploring the processes, prerequisites, and consequences of the transformation of video testimonies into exhibits.
Download or read book History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints written by Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and published by . This book was released on with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Crossroads written by Alberta Arthurs and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 282 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Essays discuss the relationship between America's religious and artistic communities and consider the controversies that have developed between them in the later twentieth century.
Download or read book Museum Collections to Illustrate Religions History and Ceremonials written by Cyrus Adler and published by . This book was released on 1895 with total page 24 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
