What is a Museum? Reading Blog for Week 5

This week's readings, Private History in Public, The New History in an Old Museum, "Civic Seeing", and Chs 1&5 in Re-Imagining the Museum raise several important issues for discussion. And more importantly how the ideas and issues can help shape the exhibit that we are responsible for (theoretically) designing.

Tony Bennet's article "Civic Seeing" brings up the important issue of museums being places for civic engagement and the underlying power relations that implies. If being a visitor at a museum is an act of citizenship, what does this say about the way in which museums specifically target demographics and different constituencies? The idea that museums are reinforcing class (among other) divisions is important in thinking about the suitability of a museum as an inclusive cultural institution. The chapters in Andrea Witcomb's Re-Imagining the Museum reaffirm this view of the museum as a meeting of history and power.

Witcomb also discusses another of the common themes in this weeks readings, the importance of new and digital media in museums. This is of particular importance to the exhibit that we will be planning. Witcomb makes a point to detail the relationship between objects and power, so how can our exhibit function in the context of a museum with only a defining concept but no real artifacts? Answering this question will be important in moving forward with our exhibit planning.

The two monographs in this weeks readings also are important in thinking about the place of museums in our society and how best to design an exhibit that is both engaging and relevant. Private History in Public is a great jumping-off point for thinking about the way in which visitors and museums curators interact. Assuming the responsibility of (theoretical) curators for this exhibit, we must be mindful of how we relate to our stakeholders.  The New History in an Old Museum, in the context of our assignment, is a cautionary tale of how even the best intentions at innovative and timely historical interpretation can go awry, or worse, unnoticed. We would do well to think about the ways that sensitive subjects can be displayed in a museum/exhibit setting that while not alienating, can still be salient.

Readings Week 2

This weeks readings: Ken Yellis' article "Fred Wilson, PTSD and Me," Paul Boyer's chapter, "Who's History Is It Anyways" in History Wars, and The Presence of the Past by Rosenzweig and Thelen.

The Yellis article is really thought-provoking and explores many of the basic questions regarding museum practice and the purpose and place of museums in America. Yellis commits in the article to the idea that a good exhibit must either 1) tell a new story or 2) tell an old story in a new way. And this made me wonder what our proposed exhibit for class will do. Are we retelling an old story, or writing a new one? Could we do both if we wanted to? Yellis' arguments that museums are a place people go for new insights into subjects, rather than information about them, reinforces the importance of informed but also innovative interpretation in exhibits.

Boyer's chapter in History Wars gives an overview of the Enola Gay controversy at the NASM, but more importantly it attempts to explain why that exhibit stirred up all the emotions that it did. Boyer raises the interesting point that seemed to be at the center of the controversy, who should be the ones determining historical meaning, historians or "the people"? Another important take-away from Boyer's essay was the importance of timing in the reception of historical interpretations. He points out that the 1960s was a far better time to question the official state narrative on any number of things, and that the 1990s was perhaps the worst time to challenge popular memory on the bombings of Hiroshima/Nagaskai because of its appeal as a sort of "last hurrah" at the 50th year anniversary for WWII vets.

Rosenzweig and Thelen's Presence of the Past, the results of a survey of the ways in which Americans engage with the past/history/narratives brings the important parts of the other pieces into perspective. Rosenzweig and Thelen found that people do actively engage with historical narratives, but in a personal  way. They create their own narratives to explain their family, group, and national pasts. The alienation and disconnect that many people feel from "history" in an educational or museum setting has little to do with interest in history and more to do with the way in which it is presented to the audience. Taking into account all of the readings it can be seen that an innovative, original, well-timed, inclusive and relevant exhibit, in which people can see their own personal stories, would be best received.

Fundraising the Dead

Sheila Connolly's Fundraising the Dead was an interesting, if at times topical, look into the running of a public history institution. Of course this book wasn't written to be included in a history graduate class syllabus (although I have a feeling that fact would thrill Connolly,) so the flair for the dramatic, the office romance/love triangle scenario and the somewhat flowery depiction of Philadelphia will have to be excused. But behind the glossy cover and the annoying similarities between Connolly and the heroine Nell Pratt, there is an important analysis about the way cultural institutions are run.

This book actually did a surprisingly good job at giving a basic overview of what the running of public history institution might look like. Connolly's inside knowledge of the way a museum or archive works came across in her descriptions of the characters jobs, her insight that public image and member donations are integral to the successful funding of such organizations, and the kind of team effort that it takes to keep such institutions running.

The most important issues, in my mind, that Connolly touched on were the managing and security of collections. To the general public the idea that historic treasures are poorly catalogued, often misplaced, or even at risk of theft or vandalism is probably an unsettling thought. Questions of how to balance the responsibility of cultural heritage institutions with their entrusted collections, and balance a budget as well are raised in this book and deserve much discussion. With the technology to manage collections digitally, but without the funding to do so shouldn't just distress young public historians hoping to find jobs. These are the issues needing discussed and the questions needing answered when talking about the future of museums, archives, and other public history institutions.