This book examines how computer-based programs can be used to acquire 'big' digital cultural heritage data, curate, and disseminate it over the Internet and in 3D visualization platforms with the ultimate goal of creating long-lasting "digital heritage repositories.' The organization of the book reflects the essence of new technologies applied to cultural heritage and archaeology. Each of these stages bring their own challenges and considerations that need to be dealt with. The authors in each section present case studies and overviews of how each of these aspects might be dealt with. While technology is rapidly changing, the principles laid out in these chapters should serve as a guide for many years to come. The influence of the digital world on archaeology and cultural heritage will continue to shape these disciplines as advances in these technologies facilitate new lines of research. serif">The book is divided into three sections covering acquisition, curation, and dissemination (the major life cycles of cultural heritage data). Acquisition is one of the fundamental challenges for practitioners in heritage and archaeology, and the chapters in this section provide a template that highlights the principles for present and future work that will provide sustainable models for digital documentation. Following acquisition, the next section highlights how equally important curation is as the future of digital documentation depends on it. Preservation of digital data requires preservation that can guarantee a future for generations to come. The final section focuses on dissemination as it is what pushes the data beyond the shelves of storage and allows the public to experience the past through these new technologies, but also opens new lines of investigation by giving access to these data to researchers around the globe. Digital technology promises significant changes in how we approach social sciences, cultural heritage, and archaeology. However, researchers must consider not only the acquisition and curation, but also the dissemination of these data to their colleagues and the public. Throughout the book, many of the authors have highlighted the usefulness of Structure from Motion (SfM) work for cultural heritage documentation; others the utility and excitement of crowdsourcing as a 'citizen scientist' tool to engage not only trained students and researchers, but also the public in the cyber-archaeology endeavor. Both innovative tools facilitate the curation of digital cultural heritage and its dissemination. Together with all the chapters in this volume, the authors will help archaeologists, researchers interested in the digital humanities and scholars who focus on digital cultural heritage to assess where the field is and where it is going.

Cultural Heritage in the European Union provides a critical analysis of the laws and policies which address cultural heritage throughout Europe, considering them in light of the current challenges faced by the Union. The volume examines the matrix of organisational and regulatory frameworks concerned with cultural heritage both in the Union and its Members States, as well as their interaction, cross-fertilisation, and possible overlaps. It brings together experts in their respective fields, including not only legal, but also cultural economists, heritage professionals, government representatives, and historians. The diverse backgrounds of the authors offer a cross-disciplinary approach and a variety of views which allows an in-depth scrutinisation of the latest developments pertaining to cultural heritage in Europe.

As art museum educators become more involved in curatorial decisions and creating opportunities for community voices to be represented in the galleries of the museum, museum education is shifting from responding to works of art to developing authentic opportunities for engagement with their communities. Current research focuses on museum education experiences and the wide-reaching benefits of including these experiences into art education courses. As more universities add art museum education to their curricula, there is a need for a text to support the topic and offer examples of real-world museum education experiences. Engaging Communities Through Civic Engagement in Art Museum Education deepens knowledge on museum and art education and civic engagement and bridges the gap from theory to practice. The chapters focus on various sectors of this research, including diversity and inclusion in museum experiences, engaging communities through new techniques, and museum and university partnerships. As such, it includes coverage on timely topics that include programs and audience engagement with the LGBTQ+, refugee, disability, and senior communities; socially responsive museum pedagogy; and the use of student workers. This book is ideal for museum educators, museum directors, curators, professionals, practitioners, researchers, academicians, and students who are interested in updated knowledge and research in art education, curriculum development, and civic engagement.

The influence of French intellectual thought on anthropology worldwide has been immense. This set of outstanding essays examines the influence of Levi-Strauss, internal debates concerning anthropology's place within French culture, the way that anthropologists in France approach the dilemmas of practising in a globalized world, and the shifting relationship between anthropology and museums. They also contain a highly stimulating discussion of how anthropology 'at home' has a particular trajectory in France. Together, they allow us to appreciate better why France has been such a stimulating laboratory for anthropological thought and why it is likely to remain so in the future. Indeed, leading figures have emerged there not only because of the brilliance of French academic culture, but also because of a specific readiness to combine an interest in public life and philosophy with anthropology. A splendid volume: extremely informative and very clearly written. The editor and the authors are to be congratulated on the way they have worked up the material into a coherent account of the contemporary French anthropological scene. It provides a model for subsequent works in the series, and a model too in general for how to make a collection of essays into a good book. Tim Jenkins, Reader in Anthropology and Religion, University of Cambridge This compelling book provides rich insight into the traditions and institutions of French anthropology, and a unique perspective on the new theoretical approaches that are shaping the discipline's renewal after Levi-Strauss. Marc Abeles, Director of Research, CNRS; Director of Studies, EHESS"

The UNESCO World Heritage Convention is one of the most widely ratified international treaties, and a place on the World Heritage List is a widely coveted mark of distinction. Building on ethnographic fieldwork at Committee sessions, interviews and documentary study, the book links the change in operations of the World Heritage Committee with structural nation-centeredness, vulnerable procedures for evaluation, monitoring and decision-making, and loose heritage conceptions that have been inconsistently applied. As the most ambitious study of the World Heritage arena so far, this volume dissects the inner workings of a prominent global body, demonstrating the power of ethnography in the highly formalised and diplomatic context of a multilateral organisation.

Ranging over the entire nineteenth century, Museums in the German Art World is a highly accessible study of the political, cultural, and artistic changes that marked Germany's transition into a modern state. Sheehan is original in focusing his examination of this transition on the invention of the museum, where 'fine arts' were defined, put on display, and the control over their political and cultural importance and influence were established. This book will appeal to German historians, historians of the 19th century Europe, art historians, and anyone interested in the interplay of fine arts, culture, and politics.

This volume brings together contributions from a variety of anthropologists working in a variety of fields, including archaeology, cultural anthropology, linguistics, and ethnohistory, in order to reflect on the importance of memory and its public presentation. The intense interest surrounding the 400th anniversary of Jamestown in 2007 was the immediate occasion for this theme, and the volume has several chapters on issues devoted to memory in the U.S. South. While museums often present themselves as neutral settings for the interpretation of artifacts, they are deeply embedded in cultural, political, and social situations that anthropologists are in a unique position to evaluate. Moreover, the volume is noteworthy for including analyses of more informal sites of memory, including oral history, that connect local pasts and futures. A sophisticated, multilayered examination of a now trendy topic in anthropology, this work seeks to question widely held notions about collective memory, always reminding us that museums and monuments inform each of us of the past in some particular way and insist that we add it to our consciousness--that we remember it.
Margaret Williamson Huber is Professor Emerita of Anthropology at the University of Mary Washington. She is the author of Powhatan Lord of Life and Death: Command and Consent in Seventeenth-Century Virginia.
Southern Anthropological Society Proceedings, no. 39

Representing a cutting-edge study of the junction between theoretical anthropology, material culture studies, religious studies and museum anthropology, this study examines the interaction between the human and the nonhuman in a museum setting usually defined as 'non-Western', 'non-scientific' and 'religious.' Combining an on-site analysis of exhibitive spaces with archival research and interviews with museum curators, the chapters highlight contradictions of museum practices, and suggests that museum practitioners use museum spaces and artefacts as a way of formulating new theoretical stances in material culture studies, thus viewing museums as producers of theories together with affective engagements.

This critical bibliography of museum studies comprises an organized collection of essays on the various types of museums--art, natural history, history, science and technology, and folk--and on general aspects--collections, education, exhibitions, etc.--that cut across the media. Most of the essays are cogent, substantial if not comprehensive, and clear. The editor has taken care to see that they follow a similar format of historical essay followed by a full bibliography of items discussed.

"Library Journal"

As the number of museums in the United States has grown to more than 6500 in this century, the museum profession has experienced similar growth. In addition to academic training and accreditation programs in the field, an expanding body of literature on museum history, philosophy, and functions has evolved, little of which has received the critical attention it deserves. This reference volume serves as an up-to-date guide to this wealth of literature, identifying and evaluating works that introduce the general reader, the museum studies student, and the beginning professional to the history, philosophy, and functions of museums.

The volume presents a series of informative, historical outlines and critical bibliographic essays on all aspects of museum history, philosophy, and functions. Contributors treat such subjects as art museums, natural history museums, science and technology museums, history museums, collections, exhibition, education and interpretation, and the public and museums. Each chapter consists of an introductory historical narrative, a survey of sources, and a bibliographic checklist that contains cited and additional sources. A set of appendices include a geographically organized bibliography of museum directories, a guide to archives and special collections, and a selective list of museum-related periodicals. The book concludes with a comprehensive general subject index. This work will be an important reference tool for museum professionals and cultural historians, as well as for courses in museum studies. It will also be a valuable addition to both academic and public libraries.

Museums are public institutions with various sets of obligations to, and legacies of, individuals and communities. This volume considers theoretically and geographically varied implications of these interactions. One thread considers particular sets of objects and the historical and social pathways they have moved along: Zuni cultural objects that remain uniquely and intrinsically sacred to their originating community, despite repeated movements and decontextualizations; West African collections in the Manchester Museum that embody historical connections between their places of origin and the northwest of England; and the movement of archaeological and ethnographic artifacts associated with Olov R. T. Janse against a variety of political backdrops, including colonialism, nationalism, and the Cold War. Other contributions consider the museum experience: challenges presented to the heritage sector by digital materials; how visitors find meaning in exhibitions; problems in the public articulation of history in Dubai, a city seen as lacking a material past; and the ongoing development of contemporary art biennials. A forum centered on museums and mental health begins with a Taiwanese study of the museum experiences of individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia, followed by responses from an international range of curatorial and academic voices. The volume is rounded out by reports and reviews of recent and current exhibits and scholarship.

The volume forms a part of the celebrations marking the anniversary of the invention of the telescope. From its Renaissance beginnings to yesterday's Cold War, the essays contributed here throw a spotlight on a number of significant episodes in the continuing adventures of this well-loved instrument, which has played a crucial role in Man's thinking about his position - literally and philosophically - in the universe. Drawn from various conferences held by the Scientific Instrument Commission of the International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science between 2007 and 2009, these papers make a substantial contribution to our current knowledge about this fascinating optical instrument.

Debates about the restitution of cultural objects have been ongoing for many decades, but have acquired a new urgency recently with the intensification of scrutiny of European museum collections acquired in the colonial period. Alexander Herman's fascinating and accessible book provides an up-to-date overview of the restitution debate with reference to a wide range of current controversies. This is a book about the return of cultural treasures: why it is demanded, how it is negotiated and where it might lead. The uneven relationships of the past have meant that some of the greatest treasures of the world currently reside in places far removed from where they were initially created and used. Today we are witnessing the ardent attempts to put right those past wrongs: a light has begun to shine on the items looted from Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the Americas and the Pacific, and the scales of history, according to some, are in need of significant realignment. This debate forces us to confront an often dark history, and the difficult application of our contemporary conceptions of justice to instances from the past. Should we allow plundered artefacts to rest where they lie - often residing there by the imbalances of history? This book asks whether we are entering a new 'restitution paradigm', one that could have an indelible impact on the cultural sector - and the rest of the world - for many years to come. It provides essential reading for all those working in the art and museum worlds and beyond.

We both give meanings to, and derive our own meanings from, the multitude of objects we live amongst. Trivial things remind us of past loves; old things embody an idealized past; on other things we believe our fate depends. In this book, Karl-Heinz Kohl describes relationships to sacred objects from the viewpoint of anthropology and the history of religion, showing how people of all cultures ascribe quite immeasurable value to things and make their own destiny dependent on these objects.During their voyages of discovery, Portuguese seafarers came across Africans who attributed mysterious powers to objects that became known as ‘fetishes’, and the concept of ‘fetishism’ soon cast a spell over European thinkers. The Church condemned it as the work of the devil, while for the philosophers of the Enlightenment it proved that no religion was rational at heart. But the fascination remained – Hegel, Comte, Marx and Freud – each of them tried to solve the riddle of fetishism in their own way. And it is fetishism that is the starting point for this book, which offers nothing less than a comprehensive theory of the sacred object,from the stone cult of ancient Israel and the Bible’s prohibition on images, to the medieval cult of reliquaries, Native American sacred bundles, magical figures of the BaKongo, and the idols of the Ancient Greeks. Tracing the fate of ancient cult images since their rediscovery in the Renaissance, Kohl comes to a striking conclusion: in the secularized societies of the Global North, it is the museum cult that is the bastion of contemporary fetishism.‘[Karl-Heinz Kohl] is undisputedly one of the best-known German anthropologists and one of the most sought-after interlocutors for all those who still think ethnology is a voice worth listening to.’Peter Probst (Tufts University), Zeitschrift für Ethnologie ‘Karl-Heinz Kohl’s work shows very clearly that it is very revealing not to always focus primarily on the actors in a culture, but rather to focus on things as actors: the thing –sacred or banal – is obviously more alive than we think.’Dorothee Kimmich (Karl-Eberhard University), Frankfurter Rundschau. ‘We must be grateful to Karl-Heinz Kohl for having written a book that while dealing with ‘the power of things’, approaches these objects from a comparative perspective, indebted as much to ethnographic accounts, as to philosophical, economic and psychoanalytic theory. Gustavo Benavides (Villanova University), Numen

Museum Studies - as an academic and practical field of research that is rapidly expanding and alive with potential - presents an opportunity and challenge that parallels the explosive growth of museums throughout the world. "Museum Worlds" traces and comments on major regional, theoretical, methodological, and topical themes and debates, and encourages comparison of museum theories, practices, and developments across a variety of settings. Drawing on the expertise and networks of a global editorial board of senior scholars and museum practitioners, "Museum Worlds" both challenges and develops the core concepts that link different disciplinary perspectives on museums by bringing new voices into ongoing debates and discussions.

The engaging range of articles and reflections featured in this inaugural volume raise questions about the public functions, obligations, and values of museums in national as well as local and community contexts. Across case studies and contexts in five continents, they explore current trends in museum-related research and practice and capture the breadth as well as depth of the compelling processes of change presently underway in the field.

"New Museum Theory and Practice" is an original collection of essays with a unique focus: the contested politics and ideologies of museum exhibition.
Contains 12 original essays that contribute to the field while creating a collective whole for course use.
Discusses theory through vivid examples and historical overviews.
Offers guidance on how to put theory into practice.
Covers a range of museums around the world: from art to history, anthropology to music, as well as historic houses, cultural centres, virtual sites, and commercial displays that use the conventions of the museum.
Authors come from the UK, Canada, the US, and Australia, and from a variety of fields that inform cultural studies.

The concept of conserving heritage for future generations is not a new idea. However, with recent digital advances, this task can be done much more efficiently and cultural properties can be better preserved for future populations. Digital Innovations in Architectural Heritage Conservation: Emerging Research and Opportunities highlights the most innovative trends in electronic preservation techniques. Featuring extensive coverage on relevant topics such as cultural complexities, participative heritage, architectural backgrounds, and virtual reconstruction, this is an ideal publication for all academicians, graduate students, engineers, and researchers interested in expanding their knowledge on current heritage conservation systems and practices.

Throughout the mid-1970s until the early 1990s, video art as vehicles for social, cultural, and political analysis were prominent within global museum based contemporary art exhibitions. For many, video art during this period stood for contemporary art. Yet from the outset, video art's incorporation into art museums has brought about specific problems in relation to its acquisition and exhibition. This book analyses, discusses, and evaluates the problematic nature and form of video art within four major contemporary art museums--the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York, the Georges Pompidou National Centre of Art and Culture in Paris, the Tate Gallery in London, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW) in Sydney. In this book, the author discusses how museum structures were redefined over a twenty-two year period in specific relation to the impetus of video art and contends that analogue video art would be instrumental in the evolution of the contemporary art museum. By addressing some of the problems that analogue video art presented to those museums under discussion, this study penetratingly reveals how video art challenged institutional structures and had demanded more flexible viewing environments from those structures. It first defines the classical museum structure established by the Louvre Museum in Paris during the 19th century and then examines the transformation from this museum structure to the modern model through the initiatives of the New York Metropolitan Museum to MoMA in New York. MoMA was the first major museum to exhibit analogue video art in a concerted fashion, and this would establish a pattern of acquisition and exhibition that became influential for other global institutions to replicate. In this book, MoMA's exhibition and acquisition activities are analysed and contrasted with the Centre Pompidou, the Tate Gallery, and the AGNSW in order to define a lineage of development in relation to video art. Extremely well researched and well written, this book covers an exhaustive, substantive, and relevant range of issues. These issues include video art (its origin, significance, significant movements, institutional challenges, and relationship to television), the establishment of the museum (its patronage and curatorial strategy) from the Louvre to MoMA, the relationship of MoMA to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, a comparative analysis of three museums in three countries on three continents, a close examination of video art exhibition, a closer look at three seminal video artists, and, finally, a critical overview of video art and its future exhibition. This unique book also covers an important period in the genesis of video art and its presentation within significant national and global cultural institutions. Those cultural institutions not only influence a meaningful part of the cultural life of four unique countries but also represent the cultural forces emerging in capital cities on three continents. By itself, this sort of geographic and institutional breadth challenges any previous study on the subject. This book successfully provides a historical explanation for the museum/gallery's relationship to video art from its emergence in the gallery to the beginnings of its acceptance as a global art phenomenon. Several prominent video artists are examined in relation to the challenges they would present to the institutionalised framework of the modern art museum and the discursive field surrounding their practice. In addition, the book contains a theoretical discussion of the problems related to video art imagery with the period of High Modernism; it examines the patterns of acquisition and exhibition, and presents an analysis of global exchange between four distinct major contemporary art institutions. The Problematic of Video Art in the Museum, 1968-1990 is an important book for all art history and museum collections.

Mediating Memory in the Museum is a contribution to an emerging field of research which is situated at the interface between memory studies and museum studies. It highlights the role of museums in the proliferation of the so-called memory boom as well as the influence of memory discourses on international trends in museum cultures. By looking at a range of museums in Germany, Britain, France and Belgium, which address a diverse spectrum of topics such as migration, difficult and dark heritage, war, slavery and the GDR, Arnold-de Simine outlines the paradigm shifts in exhibiting practices associated with the transformation of traditional history museums and heritage sites into 'spaces of memory' over the past thirty years. She probes the political and ethical claims of new museums and maps the relevance of key concepts such as 'vicarious trauma', 'secondary witnessing', 'empathic unsettlement', 'prosthetic memory' and 'reflective nostalgia' in the museum landscape.

Memory institutions such as archives, libraries, and museums collect, arrange, describe, and preserve their collections and holdings in order to make them accessible to the community. However, these institutions remain underutilized and are struggling to raise awareness of their existence and attract users and funders. The Handbook of Research on Advocacy, Promotion, and Public Programming for Memory Institutions is a collection of innovative research on emerging strategies such as advocacy, outreach, marketing, and public programming to promote memory institutions and engage the community. While highlighting topics including customer service solutions, social media, and collection development strategies, this book is ideally designed for heritage management and information professionals, curators, museum management, archival specialists, librarians, policymakers, researchers, and academicians.

Interpreting Difficult History at Museums and Historic Sites is framed by educational psychoanalytic theory and positions museum workers, public historians, and museum visitors as learners. Through this lens, museum workers and public historians can develop compelling and ethical representations of historical individuals, communities, and populations who have suffered. It includes various examples of difficult knowledge, detailed examples of specific interpretation methods, and will give readers an in-depth explanation of the psychoanalytic educational theories behind the methodologies. Audiences can more responsibly and productively engage in learning histories of oppression and trauma when they are in measured and sensitive museum learning environments and public history venues. To learn more, check out the website here: http://interpretingdifficulthistory.com/

This book analyses the instruments and approaches offered by public international law to resolve cultural heritage related disputes and facilitate the return of illicitly transferred objects to their countries of origin. In addition to assessing the instruments themselves, their origins, and their advantages and disadvantages, it also examines the roles and interests of the actors involved. Lastly, the book explores the interaction between hard and soft law approaches, the reasons for and importance of this interaction, as well as its consequences.

Nina Möntmann's timely book extends the decolonisation debate to the institutions of contemporary art. In a thoughtfully articulated text, illustrated with pertinent examples of best practice, she argues that to play a crucial role within increasingly diverse societies museums and galleries of contemporary art have a responsibility to 'decentre' their institutions, removing from their collections, exhibition policies and infrastructures a deeply embedded Euro-centric cultural focus with roots in the history of colonialism. In this, she argues, they can learn from the example both of anthropological museums (such as the Rautenstrauch-Joest-Museum in Cologne), which are engaged in debates about the colonial histories of their collections, about trauma and repair, and of small-scale art spaces (such as La Colonie, Paris, ANO, Institute of Arts and Knowledge, Accra or Savvy Contemporary, Berlin), which have the flexibility, based on informal infrastructures, to initiate different kinds of conversation and collective knowledge production in collaboration with indigenous or local diasporic communities from the Global South.  For the first time, this book identifies the influence that anthropological museums and small art spaces can exert on museums of contemporary art to initiate a process of decentring.

Departing from an ethnographic collection in London, From Storeroom to Stage traces the journey of its artefacts back to the Romanian villages where they were made 70 years ago, and to other places where similar objects are still in use. The book explores the role that material culture plays in the production of value and meaning by examining how folk objects are mobilized in national ideologies, transmissions of personal and family memory, museological discourses, and artistic acts.

Via the Smithsonian Institution, an exploration of the growing friction between the research and outreach functions of museums in the 21st century. Describing participant observation and historical research at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History as it prepared for its largest-ever exhibit renovation, Deep Time, the author provides a grounded perspective on the inner-workings of the world's largest natural history museum and the social processes of communicating science to the public. From the introduction: In exhibit projects, the tension plays out between curatorial staff-academic, research, or scientific staff charged with content-and exhibitions, public engagement, or educational staff-which I broadly group together as "audience advocates" charged with translating content for a broader public. I have heard Kirk Johnson, Sant Director of the NMNH, say many times that if you look at dinosaur halls at different museums across the country, you can see whether the curators or the exhibits staff has "won." At the American Museum of Natural History in New York, it was the curators. The hall is stark white and organized by phylogeny-or the evolutionary relationships of species-with simple, albeit long, text panels. At the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago, Johnson will tell you, it was the "exhibits people." The hall is story driven and chronologically organized, full of big graphic prints, bold fonts, immersive and interactive spaces, and touchscreens. At the Denver Museum of Nature and Science, where Johnson had previously been vice president and chief curator, "we actually fought to a draw." That, he says, is the best outcome; a win on either side skews the final product too extremely in one direction or the other. This creative tension, when based on mutual respect, is often what makes good exhibitions.

Situated at the crossroads of performance practice, museology, and cultural studies, live arts curation has grown in recent years to become a vibrant interdisciplinary project and a genuine global phenomenon. Curating Live Arts brings together bold and innovative essays from an international group of theorist-practitioners to pose vital questions, propose future visions, and survey the landscape of this rapidly evolving discipline. Reflecting the field's characteristic eclecticism, the writings assembled here offer practical and insightful investigations into the curation of theatre, dance, sound art, music, and other performance forms-not only in museums, but in community, site-specific, and time-based contexts, placing it at the forefront of contemporary dialogue and discourse.