The Thing about Museums: Objects and Experience, Representation and Contestation PDF
Preview The Thing about Museums: Objects and Experience, Representation and Contestation
Museum Objects Museum Objects creates a distinctive emphasis and perspective on the things that lie at the heart of interpretive practice in museums, material culture studies and further afi eld. Bringing together diverse, theorised and practice-based articles and extracts from a range of international academic and contextual perspectives, the texts stimulate refl ection on the nature and defi nition of the object, and people’s experiences of and relationships to it. This volume in the Leicester series focuses on the individual object and the nature of human experience of it, and on the application of these ideas to aspects of interpretive practice in museums, anthropology, art practice, management studies, archaeology, art history, and beyond. The book aims to focus, fi rst, on what objects might be and on the nature of their properties and stability (or not); second, on the sensory, emotional and other aspects of how objects are encountered and experienced; third, on the impacts of different settings on such experience; and, fourth, on where the boundaries between objects and persons can be found and how the relationships between the two may be described or imagined. Museum Objects thus constitutes a very particular, bottom-up perspective on both objects and museums. Its introductory chapter argues that starting with the object, and a fundamental understanding of its nature and of the possibilities in encountering it, can enable both the richest kinds of museum experience and the fullest knowledge of the object’s original and later contexts. The overall result is a defi nitive set of readings that offers a fresh approach to thinking about objects and their place within the museum context and elsewhere. The book will be of value to students of objects and museums and museum practitioners alike. Sandra H. Dudley is Senior Lecturer in the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester. Recent books include Materialising Exile: Material Culture and Embodied Experience Among Karenni Refugees in Thailand (2010), Museum Materialities (ed., Routledge 2010) and The Thing About Museums (co-ed., Routledge 2011). Leicester Readers in Museum Studies Series Editor: Professor Simon J. Knell Museum Management and Marketing Richard Sandell and Robert R. Janes Museums in the Material World Simon J. Knell Museums and their Communities Sheila Watson Museums in a Digital Age Ross Parry Preventive Conservation Christopher Caple Museum Objects Experiencing the Properties of Things Edited by Sandra H. Dudley First published 2012 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2012 Department of Museum Studies, University of Leicester for selection and editorial matter; individual contributions, the contributors. The right of the Department of Museum Studies, University of Leicester to be identifi ed as author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identifi cation and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Museum objects : experiencing the properties of things / edited by Sandra Dudley. p. cm. — (Leicester readers in museum studies) “ Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada”—T.p. verso. Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. Museums—Social aspects. 2. Museums—Psychological aspects. 3. Museum exhibits—Social aspects. 4. Museum exhibits—Psychological aspects. 5. Material culture—Social aspects. 6. Material culture— Psychological aspects. 7. Senses and sensation—Social aspects. 8. Senses and sensation—Psychological aspects. I. Dudley, Sandra H. AM7.M87255 2012 069—dc23 2011042164 ISBN: 978-0-415-58177-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-58178-3 (pbk) Typeset in Perpetua by Refi neCatch Limited, Bungay, Suffolk For Richard Dudley, with love Contents List of fi gures xi List of contributors xv Acknowledgements xxi Series preface xxv Preface xxvii Wayward docents xxxi M. A. SCHAFFNER 1 E ncountering a Chinese horse: engaging with the thingness of things 1 SANDRA H. DUDLEY PART I OBJECTS AND THEIR PROPERTIES 17 Introduction to Part I 19 SANDRA H. DUDLEY 2 Museum objects 23 SUSAN M. PEARCE 3 The aesthetic of the antique 26 LEON ROSENSTEIN viii CONTENTS 4 On looking at a Tahitian god-house 36 STEVEN HOOPER 5 Making life beautiful: my experience of doing beadwork 47 ANNA MACLENNAN 6 Knitting is … 50 SABRINA GSCHWANDTNER 7 Malangan: objects, sacrifice and the production of memory 57 SUSANNE KÜCHLER 8 Ere the substance fade: photography and hair jewellery 72 GEOFFREY BATCHEN 9 Preparing and conserving 90 SAMUEL J. M. M. ALBERTI PART II EXPERIENCING OBJECTS 95 Introduction to Part II 97 SANDRA H. DUDLEY 10 The materiality of cultural construction 101 DAVID MORGAN 11 The surface of objects and museum style 103 ERNST VAN DE WETERING 12 Art and the brain 109 SEMIR ZEKI 13 T he event of seeing: a phenomenological perspective on visual sense-making 116 OLGA BELOVA 14 Senses and sensibility in Byzantium 134 LIZ JAMES 15 Disaffected 150 ANNA GIBBS CONTENTS ix 16 The state of wonder 158 PETER DE BOLLA 17 Sensory exile in the field 161 SANDRA H. DUDLEY 18 In the British Museum 164 THOMAS HARDY PART III CONTEXTS OF EXPERIENCING OBJECTS 167 Introduction to Part III 169 SANDRA H. DUDLEY 19 I deas versus things: the balancing act of interpreting historic house museums 173 KIM CHRISTENSEN 20 Towards an erotics of the museum 188 JULIE MARCUS 21 F or your eyes only? The magic touch of relics 202 JAN GEISBUSCH 22 ‘ Marvels of everyday vision’: the anthropology of aesthetics and the cattle-keeping Nilotes 214 JEREMY COOTE 23 S ense matters: aesthetic values of the Great Barrier Reef 241 CELMARA POCOCK 24 O bserved decay: telling stories with mutable things 254 CAITLIN DESILVEY 25 H andmade textiles: global markets and authenticity 269 VICTORIA L. ROVINE 26 M useum Balanga as a site of cultural hybridization 280 CHRISTINA F. KREPS x CONTENTS PART IV OBJECT/PERSON DISTINCTIONS 289 Introduction to Part IV 291 SANDRA H. DUDLEY 27 O bjects, agency and museums: continuing dialogues between the Torres Strait and Cambridge 295 ANITA HERLE 28 R esonant materiality and violent remembering: archaeology, memory and bombing 311 GABRIEL MOSHENSKA 29 T he intangibility of things 324 SIMON J. KNELL 30 ‘ Things’ as social agents 336 ALFRED GELL 31 A rt as a mode of action: some problems with Gell’s Art and Agency 344 HOWARD MORPHY 32 T he Blind Man’s Stick (BMS) hypothesis 363 LAMBROS MALAFOURIS 33 M aking culture and weaving the world 368 TIM INGOLD Index 385
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