Bringing together scholars and practitioners from North America, Europe, Russia, and Australia, this pioneering volume provides a global survey of how museums address religion and charts a course for future research and interpretation. Contributors from a variety of disciplines and institutions explore the work of museums from many perspectives, including cultural studies, religious studies, and visual and material culture. Most museums throughout the world - whether art, archaeology, anthropology or history museums - include religious objects, and an increasing number are beginning to address religion as a major category of human identity. With rising museum attendance and the increasingly complex role of religion in social and geopolitical realities, this work of stewardship and interpretation is urgent and important. Religion in Museums is divided into six sections: museum buildings, reception, objects, collecting and research, interpretation of objects and exhibitions, and the representation of religion in different types of museums. Topics covered include repatriation, conservation, architectural design, exhibition, heritage, missionary collections, curation, collections and display, and the visitor's experience. Case studies provide comprehensive coverage and range from museums devoted specifically to the diversity of religious traditions, such as the State Museum of the History of Religion in St Petersburg, to exhibitions centered on religion at secular museums, such as Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam, at the British Museum.

This worldwide study examines how religion gets into theme parks - as mission, as an aspect of culture, as fable, and by chance. Gods and Rollercoasters analyses religion in theme parks, looking at how it relates to modernism, popular culture, right-wing politics, nationalism, and the rise of the global middle class. Crispin Paine argues that religion has discovered a major new means of expression through theme parks. From the reconstruction of Biblical Jerusalem at the Holy Land Experience in Orlando, through the world of Chinese mythology at Haw Par Villa in Singapore, to the great temple/theme park Akshardham in New Delhi, this book shows how people are encountering and experiencing religion in the context of fun, thrills and leisure time. Drawing on examples from six of the seven continents, and exploring religious traditions including Christianity, Daoism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam, Gods and Rollercoasters provides a significant contribution to the study of religion, sociology, anthropology, and popular culture.

In the past, museums often changed the meaning of icons or statues of deities from sacred to aesthetic, or used them to declare the superiority of Western society, or simply as cultural and historical evidence. The last generation has seen faith groups demanding to control 'their' objects, and curators recognising that objects can only be understood within their original religious context. In recent years there has been an explosion of interest in the role religion plays in museums, with major exhibitions highlighting the religious as well as the historical nature of objects.Using examples from all over the world, "Religious Objects in Museums" is the first book to examine how religious objects are transformed when they enter the museum, and how they affect curators and visitors. It examines the full range of meanings that religious objects may bear - as scientific specimen, sacred icon, work of art, or historical record. Showing how objects may be used to argue a point, tell a story or promote a cause, may be worshipped, ignored, or seen as dangerous or unlucky, this highly accessible book is an essential introduction to the subject.

This book offers a comprehensive, multidisciplinary introduction to theme parks and the field of theme park studies. It identifies and discusses relevant economic, social, and cultural as well as medial, historical, and geographical aspects of theme parks worldwide, from the big international theme park chains to smaller, regional, family-operated parks. The book also describes the theories and methods that have been used to study theme parks in various academic disciplines and reviews the major contexts in which theme parks have been studied. By providing the necessary backgrounds, theories, and methods to analyze and understand theme parks both as a business field and as a socio-cultural phenomenon, this book will be a great resource to students, academics from all disciplines interested in theme parks, and professionals and policy-makers in the leisure and entertainment as well as the urban planning sector.

This volume comprises a collection of essays in memory of the late John Rhodes by some of his many friends and colleagues. They salute a remarkable individual of wide tastes and interests. His achievements in the conservation, study and recording of the past from the Roman period to the present day, both in museums and in the field, were prodigious. The aim of the book is to follow the tradition of English antiquarian scholarship by taking three approaches: the study of individual monuments and objects, the investigation of the manner in which that study is reflected in their present-day care and interpretation, and the study of the wider implications of such approaches.

This worldwide study examines how religion gets into theme parks - as mission, as an aspect of culture, as fable, and by chance. Gods and Rollercoasters analyses religion in theme parks, looking at how it relates to modernism, popular culture, right-wing politics, nationalism, and the rise of the global middle class. Crispin Paine argues that religion has discovered a major new means of expression through theme parks. From the reconstruction of Biblical Jerusalem at the Holy Land Experience in Orlando, through the world of Chinese mythology at Haw Par Villa in Singapore, to the great temple/theme park Akshardham in New Delhi, this book shows how people are encountering and experiencing religion in the context of fun, thrills and leisure time. Drawing on examples from six of the seven continents, and exploring religious traditions including Christianity, Daoism, Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam, Gods and Rollercoasters provides a significant contribution to the study of religion, sociology, anthropology, and popular culture.

Bringing together scholars and practitioners from North America, Europe, Russia, and Australia, this pioneering volume provides a global survey of how museums address religion and charts a course for future research and interpretation. Contributors from a variety of disciplines and institutions explore the work of museums from many perspectives, including cultural studies, religious studies, and visual and material culture. Most museums throughout the world - whether art, archaeology, anthropology or history museums - include religious objects, and an increasing number are beginning to address religion as a major category of human identity. With rising museum attendance and the increasingly complex role of religion in social and geopolitical realities, this work of stewardship and interpretation is urgent and important. Religion in Museums is divided into six sections: museum buildings, reception, objects, collecting and research, interpretation of objects and exhibitions, and the representation of religion in different types of museums. Topics covered include repatriation, conservation, architectural design, exhibition, heritage, missionary collections, curation, collections and display, and the visitor's experience. Case studies provide comprehensive coverage and range from museums devoted specifically to the diversity of religious traditions, such as the State Museum of the History of Religion in St Petersburg, to exhibitions centered on religion at secular museums, such as Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam, at the British Museum.