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Course Description

The purpose of this course is to look at the process of museum exhibit creation in historical museums, from planning through development to opening and maintenance, as a negotiation among many stakeholders for influence upon the story that is told. We will consider the institutional positioning of the museum, including its history and resources; the interests and concerns of museum employees (registrars, researchers, curators, conservators, education specialists, support staff); the influence of the public, both the “audience” public and those whose interests are directly affected and/or represented by an exhibit’s story; and the role of contractual professionals when they are used (designers, exhibit construction firms, visitor studies experts). As a field for the study of this knowledge we will use the range of historical museums and museum-like venues in Austin where informal learning about history is available to citizens.

Course Objectives

Students will visit historical museums and similar venues in the Austin area and try out methods of "reading" them for history of construction, intended audience(s), and overt and implied messages. At the end of the course, students will:

Understand the knowledge and power issues surrounding the representation of the historical past in museums

Know the roles and motivations of museum professionals in historical museums

Be familiar with a range of concerns experienced by members of the public who find themselves or their communities the subject of a historical museum exhibit

Be familiar with the interests and concerns that attract members of the public to visit historical museums

Be able to analyze the production and consumption process in which a historical museum exhibit is embedded

Be able to devise a framework for historical exhibit planning that addresses he broadest range of community concerns

The syllabus will be posted and should be checked regularly for any changes. Any students requiring accommodation for disability or religious holy days should contact the instructor at the beginning of class.

Assignments

Class participation (20% of grade): Students will be expected to carry out assigned museum visits and do the readings to prepare adequately for classroom parricipation in discussion.

Class project (30% of grade): All students in the class will work together to survey and characterize as many history-purveying venues in Austin as we can find, creating a critical guide to the sources of informal historical learning available in the city. After the class has gathered a list of these venues, students will be assigned specific venues to write up according to a template for analysis developed in the course of the class.

Term essay (40% of grade): Each student will write an essay on a topic selected from a list to be announced on October 7. The essay will be an original piece of work, formally researched, of 10-15 pages. At the end of the course, each student will be required to present a precis of the paper as a contribution to the summative discussions.

Final examination (10% of grade): Students will be given a take-home set of essay questions at the last class, to be returned by the date that the examination would be regularly scheduled.

Class Schedule

August 27: First class:

Lecture: History museums as "contested realms"

Discussion: "My most memorable historical museum"--What makes them memorable?

September 3: Museum missions

Preclass site visit: Daughters of the Republic of Texas Museum, take notes, using the Carr reading as a framework.
Address: I-35 and 183 junction/access road
Hours: Monday-Friday 10AM-4PM, closed Labor Day
Entrance fee: $1 for students with ID

Readings:
David Carr, "Appendix B: To Observe," in The Promise of Cultural Institutions (Walnut Creek, CA: Altamira), 193-200. [e-Reserves]
Excellence and Equity:Education and the Public Dimension of Museums (Washington: American Association of Museums, 1992). Read entire booklet. [e-Reserves and hopefully Coop]

Lecture/Discussion: Who makes history museums?

September 10: Elements of traditional museum practice

Preclass site visit: Texas Military Forces Museum, Camp Mabry
Address: Camp Mabry, off 35th Street; ask directions at gate
Hours: Wednesday-Sunday, 10AM-4PM
Entrance fee: free

Readings:
Pearce, Susan. Museums, Objects, and Collections: A Cultural Study (Washington: Smithsonian, 1992), Chapters 1 and 2, 1-35. [e-Reserves while waiting for the books to arrive]
Wallace, Mike. "Visiting the Past: History museums in the United States," in Mickey Mouse History (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 3-32. [e-Reserves]

Lecture/Discussion: Collecting, maintaining, displaying

September 17: Artifacts I: What's in a thing?

Show-and-tell: Students will bring an artifact with a personal connection to be discussed in class

Readings:
Crew, Spencer D., and James E. Sims. "Locating Authenticity: Fragments of a Dialogue," in Karp and Lavine (eds.), Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington: Smithsonian, 1991), 159-175.
Kopytoff, Igor, "The Cultural biography of things: Commoditization as process," in Arjun Appadurai (ed.), The Social Life of Things: Commodities in cultural perspective (Cambridge: CUP, 1986), 64-91. [e-Reserves]
Pearce, Susan. Museums, Objects, and Collections: A Cultural Study (Washington: Smithsonian, 1992), Chapters 3 and 4, 36-38.

Lecture/Discussion: Production and meaning of artifacts

September 24: Artifacts II: What's left after living?

Preclass site visit: George Washington Carver Museum
Address: 1165 Angelina Street
Hours: Tuesday-Thursday 10AM-6PM; Friday-Saturday 12PM-5PM
Entrance fee: free

Readings:
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. "Objects of Ethnography," in Karp and Lavine (eds.), Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington: Smithsonian, 1991), 386-443.
Jordanova, Ludmilla. "Objects of knowledge: A Historical perspective on museums," in Peter Vergo (ed.), The New Museology (London: Reaktion, 1989), 22-40. [e-Reserves]
Pearce, Susan. Museums, Objects, and Collections: A Cultural Study (Washington: Smithsonian, 1992), Chapters 5 and 6, 89-143.
Ruffins, Fath Davis. "Mythos, Memory, and History: African American Preservation Efforts, 1820-1990," in Karp and Lavine, Museums and Communities, 507-611.

Lecture/Discussion: Artifact survival and the effect on meaning

October 1: Texts: Who says?

Preclass site visit: O. Henry Museum
Address: 409 East 5th Street
Hours: Wednesday-Sunday 12PM-5PM
Entrance fee: free

Readings:
Trouillot, Michel-Rolph. Chapter 1, "The Power in the Story," from Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon, 1995), 1-30. [e-Reserves]
Galloway, Patricia. "The Archaeology of Ethnohistorical Narrative," in David Hurst Thomas (ed.), Columbian Consequences, Volume 3 (Washington: Smithsonian, 1991), 453-469. [e-Reserves]

Essay topics announced

Lecture/Discussion: "Reading" paper, voice, other cultural productions

October 8: Communities I: story-bearers

Preclass site visit:

Readings:
Clifford, James. "Four Northwest Coast museums: Travel reflections," in Karp and Lavine (eds.), Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington: Smithsonian, 1991), 212-254.
Handler, Richard. "On having a culture: Nationalism and the preservation of Quebec's Patrimoine," in George W. Stocking (ed.), Objects and Others: Essays on Museums and Material Culture (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1985), 192-217. [e-Reserves]
Lavine, Steven D. "Audience, Ownership, and Authority: Designing relations between museums and communities," in Karp, Kreamer, and Lavine (eds.), Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture (Washington: Smithsonian, 1992), 137-157.
Rosenzweig, Roy, and David Thelen. The Presence of the Past: Popular Uses of History in American Life (New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), read Chapter 1 (15-36) and 4 (89-114); if you have time also read "Afterthoughts," 177-208. [This book is available as an e-book through the UT Library catalog]

Paper proposals due to be turned in.

Lecture/Discussion: Working with communities

October 15: The work of the exhibit team

Class visit: Bob Bullock museum of Texas History. Located across MLK from the Sanchez building. Note that there is a $5.00 admission charge for this museum. We will meet at the door of the museum at 1 P.M. sharp, so be there so you can get your ticket; each student will then visit the permanent exhibits on all three floors of the museum for two hours; at 3:00 we will adjourn from the museum for a lecture-discussion (see below).

Readings:
Visit the background webpage for the Bob Bullock museum and follow up on the links for participating designers and planners: http://www.tspb.state.tx.us/tspb/TSHM/About/Backgrnd.htm
Galloway, Patricia. "Revising the South's Colonial Story for a Postcolonial Audience," presented at American Historical Association 1996 meeting, session Revisioning the Past. [e-Reserves]

Lecture from Lynn Denton, museum director:
how the exhibit team that created the museum was organized
how the museum's ongoing work is organized
how the museum works with stakeholders

October 22: Communicating histories I: conceptual

Readings:
Baxandall, Michael. "Exhibiting Intention: Some preconditions of the visual display of culturally purposeful objects," in Karp and Lavine (eds.), Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington: Smithsonian, 1991), 33-41.
Pearce, Susan. Museums, Objects, and Collections: A Cultural Study (Washington: Smithsonian, 1992), Chapters 7, 8, and 9, 144-209.
Chenhall, Robert. Nomenclature for museum cataloging : a system for classifying man-made objects (Nashville: AASLH, 1978), chapters 1-3, pp. 3-38. [e-Reserves]

Lecture/Discussion: How to make a story into a visit

October 29: Communicating histories II: physical

Readings:
Pearce, Susan. Museums, Objects, and Collections: A Cultural Study (Washington: Smithsonian, 1992), Chapter 10, 228-255.
Kulik, Gary. "Designing the Past: History-Museum Exhibitions from Peale to the Present," in Warren Leon and Roy Rosenzweig (eds.), History Museums in the United States: A Critical Assessment (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989), 2-37. [e-Reserves]
Belcher, Michael. Exhibitions in Museums (Washington: Smithsonian, 1991), Chapter 9, pp. 99-121. [e-Reserves]

Lecture/Discussion: Space, movement, and story

November 5: Communities II: story-hearers

Preclass site visit: LBJ Library museum exhibits (UT campus)
Address: 2313 Red River, on UT campus
Hours: Every day except Christmas, 9AM-5PM
Entrance fee: free

Readings:
Eco, Umberto. "Travels in Hyperreality," in Travels in Hyperreality (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986), 3-58. This one is optional, chiefly for the little section on the LBJ exhibits.
Pearce, Susan. Museums, Objects, and Collections: A Cultural Study (Washington: Smithsonian, 1992), Chapter 11.
Wallace, Mike. "Museums and Controversy," in Mickey Mouse History (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1996), 115-129. [e-Reserves]
Handler, Richard, and Eric Gable. The New History in an Old Museum (Durham: Duke University Press, 1998). Try to read the whole thing if you can. This will be relevent both for this class and the next.

Lecture/Discussion: Visitor studies, quantitative and qualitative

November 12: Historical museums and informal learning

Preclass site visit: Jourdan-Bachman Pioneer Farm
Address: 11418 Sprinkle Cut-Off Road
Hours: Monday-Wednesday 9:30AM-1PM, Sunday 1 PM-5PM
Entrance fee: $5

Readings:
Heumann Gurian, Elaine. "Noodling around with exhibition opportunities," in Karp and Lavine (eds.), Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington: Smithsonian, 1991), 176-190.
Merriman, Nick. "Museum visiting as a cultural phenomenon," in Peter Vergo (ed.), The New Museology (London: Reaktion, 1989), 149-171. [e-Reserves]
Gordon Fyfe and Max Ross. "Decoding the visitor's gaze: rethinking museum visiting," in Sharon MacDonald and Gordon Fyfe (eds.), Theorizing Museums: Representing Identity and Diversity in a Changing World (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996), 127-150. [e-Reserves]

Lecture/Discussion: Reception of meaning in the historical museum

November 19: Summative discussion I: Austin's historical landscape

Reading:
Perin, Constance. "The Communicative Circle: Museums as Communities," in Karp et al., Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture (Washington: Smithsonian, 1992), 182-220.

Lecture/Discussion: Understanding Austin's historical landscape

November 26: Summative discussion II: Changing Austin's historical landscape

Lecture/Discussion

December 3: Term papers due (please email as attachment to instructor)

December 13: Take-home exam papers due (see questions below; email as attachment to instructor)

Texts

Susan Pearce. Museums, Objects, and Collections: A Cultural Study (Washington: Smithsonian, 1992).

Ivan Karp and Steven Lavine (eds.). Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington: Smithsonian, 1991).

Ivan Karp, Christine Kreamer, and Steven Lavine (eds.). Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture (Washington: Smithsonian, 1992).

American Association of Museums. Excellence and Equity: Education and the Public Dimension of Museums (Washington: AAM, 1992).

These texts should be available for purchase in the Coop Bookstore, but if you can't find them, order online. The first three will be used throughout; Handler and Gable will be used at the end. Other readings will be provided in photocopied form in the GSLIS laboratory or on reserve (if I can get them) at PCL.