Museums in a   Developing World HSTY 305/405

Professor Miriam Levin

Mary A. Clifton
Carmen G. Rodriguez
Stephanie M. Thomas

Museums are everywhere contested spaces today.  Historically designed as agents of public education and community formation, now they are centers of public controversy on a global scale.  The Smithsonian's plan for exhibiting the Enola Gay had international repercussions matched by political struggles over returning the Elgin Marbles to Greece, African artifacts to Nigeria or Native American artifacts in natural history collections to groups whose ancestors produced them.  Museums figure in conflicts over urban redevelopment, as new and refurbished museums in cities as distant as Paris and Jerusalem draw tourists and new residents to inner cities while local inhabitants leave.

Questions we will consider in this course: what are the fundamental features of museums as institutions; how have they been structured; what ties have linked them to wider national and international communities, political, economic and social scenes; what functions have they performed and how have they used resources such as research, collecting spatial designs, of buildings, display technologies, and geographic location to carry out these functions; how do museums in Asia, Africa, and Latin America figure in the current international contention over the issues of  heritage?