080029 VO Museums, Exhibitions, Conservations (2025S)

This lecture will discuss key issues in the fields of museum studies, conservation, the history of collections, and provenance research. We will examine historical examples of early institutions, such as curiosity cabinets, and trace the evolution of museums over time, incorporating modern and contemporary examples from Africa and the Middle East. The course will consider specific museums across Europe and the United States, focusing on how discourses of memory and heritage are embedded within museum displays. We will consider various types of institutions, including art museums, historical museums, natural history museums, archives, and ethnographic and anthropological museums. Particular attention will be paid to the materiality of exhibitions and storages, including the production of casts and dioramas, and the politics surrounding these spaces. Furthermore, this lecture emphasizes the complexity of museums as institutions, with a wide range of people interacting within multilayered and hierarchical structures. We will develop a nuanced approach, focusing on key players, close analyses of institutions, and the specific historical contexts that shape them.