The museum in the cultural sciences : collecting, displaying, and interpreting material culture in the twentieth century

Format:

Book

Language:

English

Imprint:

New York City : Bard Graduate Center, [2021], [Chicago] : University of Chicago Press, [2021], and ©2021

Subject:

Historical museums - History - 20th century
Ethnological museums and collections - History - 20th century
Museum techniques - History - 20th century
Historical museums - Germany - Berlin - History - 20th century
Ethnological museums and collections - Germany - Berlin - History - 20th century

Contributor:

Miller, Peter N., editor, editor of series
Fisher, Annika, translator
Schott, Nils, translator
Lauffer, Otto
Richter, Oswald
Museumskunde

ISBN:

9781941792162 and 1941792162

Series:

Bard Graduate Center cultural histories of the material world

Description:

xi, 317 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Bibliographic Note:

Includes bibliographical references and index

Contents:

Introduction. What kind of knowledge is museum knowledge? / Peter N. Miller -- Part I. From the pages of Museumskunde -- A note on the text -- The historical museum : its character, its work, and how it differs from museums of art and applied arts / Otto Lauffer -- On the ideal and practical tasks of ethnographic museums / Oswald Richter -- Part II. Reflections on reading Lauffer and Richter today -- Youth and arrogance / Julien Chapuis -- Oswald Richter and "the purity of the specific local culture" / Edward Cooke, Jr. -- "Certain secondary tasks of ethnographic museums" : Richter's writings and the role of ethnographic museums in Germany's colonial period / Viola König -- Perfecting the past : period rooms between Disneyland and the white box / Deborah L. Krohn -- Categories with consequences / Alisa Lagama -- Visions of juxtaposition : Peiresc/Bataille, monuments/documents / Peter N. Miller -- The future in the past / Glenn Penny -- Triangulating art/artifact : indigenous studies as the third term / Ruth Phillips -- Richter and us / Jeffrey Quilter -- An attempt at order in a time of flux / Matthew Rampley -- Words and things / Anke te Heesen -- Mix it up : five observations on collections and museums / Nicholas Thomas -- Life and death in the museum / Céline Trautmann-Waller -- Photographs, showcases, and multiple agencies : modes of representation and directions of gaze / Eva-Maria Troelenberg -- The museum beyond walls / Mariët Westermann -- Conclusion. Max Weber in the museum / Peter N. Miller

Summary:

"Berlin and its museums have been at the center of museum thinking for the last hundred years. Debates about the role and structure of museums played out in 1907 and 1910 with two striking series of articles that appeared in the journal Museumskunde: Journal for the Administration and Technology of Public and Private Collections. The first was a six-part essay by Otto Lauffer on history museums, and the second was a ten-part piece by Oswald Richter regarding ethnographic museums. Together, they initiated a century of significant dialogue. The Museum in the Cultural Sciences offers the first full English translations of these articles, which remain influential in conversations about the implications of art, historical, and ethnographic museums. They show how sophisticated the discussion of museums and museum display was in the early twentieth century and how much could be gained from revisiting these reflections in the current age -- just as the same collections discussed in these pages are reorganized yet again, and searching questions about patrimony, display, and repatriation reemerge"-- Dust jacket

Collection:

BGC Monograph Stacks

Call Number:

AM5 .M87 2021

Available

c.1

Collection:

BGC Monograph Stacks

Call Number:

Available

c.2