Inside the Museum (AHV1005)

15 credits

This module is a conceptual introduction to the artistic, social, aesthetic, and political implications of the museum from roughly the 17th century to the present. It will involve specific case studies, a field trip (or trips), and theoretical writings that will challenge you to think about the museum as not merely a repository and exhibition space for objects, but rather as a complex technology for ordering and classifying material objects to create forms of knowledge; for constructing narratives of material and cultural history, aesthetics, and civic ideals; and for providing us with experiments in seeing patterns of meaning emerge in physical and virtual spaces.