Fwd: Museum Newsletter, August 2011

Fifth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum  Find Out More >

Headline News Community News Publishing News

August 2011	Subscribe	Forward to a Colleague	Contact Us

Headline News

Fifth International Conference on the Inclusive Museum www.Museum-Conference.com Inclusive Museum Conference 2-5 August 2012 University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados Plenary Speakers Lonnie G. Bunch, III, Historian, author, curator and educator, Founding director of the Smithsonian s National Museum of African American History and Culture, Washington, DC, USA Alissandra Cummins, Immediate Past President of ICOM; Director, Barbados Museums and Historical Society, Barbados Call for Papers If you intend to present a paper at the conference, your participation begins by submitting a paper proposal. More information on proposals, presentation types, and other options available here. If your proposal is accepted, you will then need to register for the conference. Registration Those who submit paper proposals should register following the acceptance of the proposal. Conference delegates who do not intend to present may register at any time. 2012 Museum Conference registration options. Themes Theme 1: Objects of Concern Theme 2: Interrogating The Collection Theme 3: Museums as Knowledge Makers and Custodians Theme 4: Pedagogy of the Museum Theme 5: The Virtual Museum Theme 6: Museum Business

Community News

One Math Museum, Many Variables By Kenneth Chang from The New York Times For everyone who finds mathematics incomprehensible, boring, pointless, or all of the above, Glen Whitney wants to prove you wrong. He believes that tens of thousands of visitors will flock to his Museum of Mathematics, to open in Manhattan next year, and leave invigorated about geometry, numbers and many more mathematical notions. We want to expose the breadth and the beauty of mathematics, said Mr. Whitney, a former math professor who parlayed his quantitative skills into a job at a Long Island hedge fund. He quit in late 2008 with connections to deep pockets and a quest to make math fun and cool. To Read More… Koreans Celebrate Return of Looted Books by France Image Courtesy of the AP From The Korea Times South Korea on Saturday celebrated the return of ancient Korean royal books from France with a procession, traditional ceremonies and performances that involved more than 1,000 officials and local residents. The celebrations came after the final batch of the 297-volume "Oegyujanggak" books arrived in South Korea late last month. The texts, featuring protocols of royal ceremonies and rites from the Joseon Dynasty (1392-1910), were looted by French troops in 1866 when they invaded Ganghwa Island in retaliation for Koreans' persecution of French Catholic missionaries. The books had been kept at an ancient royal library, known as Oegyujanggak, on the island located west of Seoul from the late 18th century. The celebrations took place in and around the site of the ancient library, starting with a 1-kilometer procession from Ganghwasanseong Fortress to Oegyujanggak that reenacted the books' transfer to the library in the 18th century. More than 500 people took part in the parade, including residents of the county of Ganghwa, located on the island, as well as soldiers, students and actors. They escorted palanquins carrying copies of the ancient books, as the original texts are now being stored at the National Museum of Korea in Seoul. To Read More… Hungarian Natural History Under Threat Image Courtesy of N. Bauer, HNHM By Marian Turner from nature.com Looking for a new home: 200 human mummies from the eighteenth century, the remains of rare European dinosaurs and 10 million other artefacts currently at the Hungarian Natural History Museum, which is facing eviction later this year. The Hungarian government plans to turn the historic Budapest building given to the museum after the fall of communism in 1989 into a university to train the military or the police. Scientists in Hungary and abroad are shocked by the move because the imposing 1836 Ludovika building has been extensively renovated for the museum, and curators are still moving the collections in. They say that the museum has not been offered an alternative site, and fear that the collections will have to be stored in crates until a new home is found. To Read More…

Publishing News

Announcing the Winner of the International Award for Excellence Congratulations to Donald Dunham the winner of the International Award for Excellence in the inclusive museum field with his paper Inclusivity, Objectivity, and The Ideal: The Museum as Utopian Space At first glance the contemporary Cabinet of Curiosities appears to provide all the necessary ingredients for inclusion into the utopic environment: the museum program generally provides access to all, a scholarly objectivity in the display of curated artifacts, and, in exhibit design, the object displayed ideally. The museum as an ideal venue (outside the intended or original context) for select objects, for example, can be decoded through the British Museum s neo-classical pedimented entry as well as through the Museum of Modern Art s 1939 International Style structure designed by Philip Goodwin and Edward Durell Stone as an embodiment of the Modernist Utopian ideology. However, not all museum structures, spaces, and installation furniture appear to fit the utopian template. Daniel Libeskind s deconstructivist Jewish Museum in Berlin does not conjure up perfect worlds, in fact quite the opposite. Nevertheless, within the dystopian shadow of history lie the roots of Libeskind s discontinuous void: the survival and rebirth of a broken people, a concept also found in the utopian work of the Russian Constructivists. This paper examines the museum as a utopian space; using case studies and contrasting museum agendas, The Ideal is explored and challenged as prerequisite in the planning and maintenance of museum space. Series: On Museums We are accepting book proposals for the imprint On Museums. Common Ground is setting new standards of rigorous academic knowledge creation and scholarly publication. Unlike other publishers, we re not interested in the size of potential markets or competition from other books. We re only interested in the intellectual quality of the work. If your book is a brilliant contribution to a specialist area of knowledge that only serves a small intellectual community, we still want to publish it. If it is expansive and has a broad appeal, we want to publish it too, but only if it is of the highest intellectual quality.

© 2011 Common Ground Publishing
Common Ground Publishing University of Illinois Research Park 2001 S. First Street, Suite 202 Champaign, IL 61820 USA	Tel: +1-217-328-0405 Fax: +1-217-328-0435 support@commongroundpublishing.com Our Privacy Policy

This e-mail was sent to lubar@brown.edu. You've received it because you're signed up to receive messages from onmuseums.com. You can unsubscribe here.

Oral History and Social Change

  
 *Groundswell: Oral History for Social Change* September 15th-16th Briarcliff Manor, NY  Groundswell will bring together a small group of oral historians, cultural workers, and community organizers that are experimenting with ways to use oral history for movement building and social change.  Over the course of a day and a half, we'll:     - share our work and stories (of course!)    - explore the practical and ethical questions we face in doing this work    - workshop our campaigns/projects and receive critical feedback and    support    - map out plans for future outreach and collaboration  With this gathering, we hope to contribute in some small way to the development of a community of praxis engaged in an ongoing dialogue about effective and creative ways to use oral history for community & movement-building, advocacy and social change.  *Connect!    *If you use oral history to actively support social movements and create social change, we are eager to learn about your work.  We also have a few more spots available for the gathering this fall.  If you are interested in participating or learning more, please send a brief description of your relevant work/experience and what you hope to get out of the gathering to sarahloose@gmail.com.  *Support!*    We also invite you to support the gathering and the development of this emerging network with a financial contribution.  All contributions are tax-deductible and will be used to provide scholarships to participants with financial need.  Anyone who makes a contribution of $25 or more will receive a hard-copy of the gathering report.  (Contribute online<http://www.thresholdcollaborative.org/>or send a check to: Threshold Collaborative, PO Box 512 North Bennington, VT 05257 and write "Groundswell" in the memo line).  We look forward to hearing from you.  Best, Sarah K. Loose, coordinator of the Roots & Wings Rural Organizing Oral History Project<http://www.rop.org/roots-wings-past-future-of-rural-oregons-grassroots-movement-for-human-dignity> Alisa del Tufo, founder and director of Threshold Collaborative<http://www.thresholdcollaborative.org/> Daniel Kerr, assistant professor at American University History Department Amy Starecheski, doctoral student, CUNY Graduate Center Anthropology Department Sady Sullivan, oral historian at the Brooklyn Historical Society<http://brooklynhistory.org/default/index.html> ________________________________________________________________  *Groundswell: Oral History for Social Change* September 15th - 16th Briarcliff Manor, NY  In our struggles for justice our stories and our histories are sources of power and strength.  They can inspire and motivate in moments of defeat or uncertainty and build empathy across lines of difference.  They show a way forward, highlighting tactics and strategies that result in lasting change.   Sharing our stories can empower, awaken, and transform.  Since the 1970s, oral history has been recognized as an invaluable method for preserving the largely undocumented stories of social movements and their actors.  Today, hundreds of archives and interview projects document the history and voices of marginalized communities and of feminist, queer, environmental and civil rights activists.  Less explored, however, is the powerful role that oral history can play in not only documenting radical social change, but actively contributing to it.  There are real challenges to more fully incorporating the practice of oral history and storytelling into movement building and organizing.  Often oral history interviews take place one-on-one, and it can be challenging to mobilize the transformative encounter of an oral history exchange to build movements more broadly.  Oral history is an intentional, sometimes slow process—not always on the timeline of urgent campaigns or grant report deadlines.  There are concerns about "using" people for their stories, especially if they might not benefit immediately or directly from sharing them.  Condensing stories into the manageable sound bites that our campaigns, workshops and websites demand can simplify or flatten people's complex, multi-layered identities and experiences – maybe even in ways that undermine fundamental goals of restoring dignity and highlighting our communities' rich cultures and diversity.  Respecting community control and ownership can be surprisingly complex in preserving oral histories for future generations of movement leaders.  In all aspects of our practice, we try to be aware of how our own race, class and gender identities impact the work, and to embody anti-oppressive pedagogy and methodology.  Ultimately, how can we mobilize and collectivize the process, products, and preservation of oral history for justice-making?  Plenty of people and projects struggle with these questions; the most innovative seem to operate at the margins of many established and emerging fields, combining the practice of oral history with the techniques and principles of community organizing, digital storytelling, public and community-based history, participatory action research, and popular education.  It may be precisely because of this interdisciplinary nature of the work, which doesn't fit squarely into any one method or practice, that the spaces for practitioners engaged in these projects to network, share ideas and engage in critical inquiry around our practice have been so limited.  This gathering is one step towards filling that gap.  It is one step towards the creation of a community of praxis engaged in an ongoing dialogue about effective and creative ways to use oral history and narrative as tools for community & movement-building, advocacy and social change.  

Looking Forward: Preservation in New England in the Twenty-First Century

Looking Forward: Preservation in New England in the Twenty-First Century
Historic New England Symposium
Saturday, October 1
Roger Williams University
Bristol, Rhode Island 

Join Historic New England and a new generation of preservationists as they articulate a vision for what is to be preserved in New England in the twenty-first century. Graduate students from the nation's top preservation and public history programs explore topics in three different areas: evaluation, assessment, and interpretation; integrity and treatment; and advocacy and activism. Registration is $50 for Historic New England members, $60 for nonmembers, $35 for students; click here for more information and to register.

FOUR CALLS FOR PROPOSALS: HASTAC Ann Arbor, iCHASS, MobilityShifts, Imagining America

1)  2011 HASTAC Conference at University of Michigan - Ann Arbor 

The University of Michigan will be hosting the 2011 annual HASTAC Conference on its Ann Arbor campus December 2 and 3, 2011.  We invite proposals for presentations on the general theme of Digital Scholarly Communication.  More details, including the link to submit proposals, are available here.

Deadline for submission: July 1, 2011

2) iCHASS (Institute for Computing in Humanities, Arts, and Social Science) 2011 eSocial Science Conference

The 2011 eSocial Science Conference, Networking eSocial Science, invites papers, workshops, and exhibits addressing these themes.  The conference will be hosted by the Institute for Computing in Humanities, Arts, and Social Science from September 6-8, 2011 at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Special sessions and workshops at the conference will be devoted to networking eSocial Science.  More details are available here.

Deadline for submission: June 30, 2011

3) MobilityShifts: An International Future of Learning Summit

MobilityShifts, to be held Oct. 10-16, 2011 at The New School in New York City, is provocative conversations, original ideas, engaging performances, workshops and art projects about digital learning. Where, when, how, and even what we are learning is changing. Digital learning is not only taking place online or in the university classroom but is also situated in museums, after school programs, living rooms, public libraries and peer-to-peer universities. MobilityShifts will bring together leading scholars, artists, web developers, technologists, teachers, librarians, policy makers, critical legal scholars and learning activists to discuss how digital media can play a positive role in this process of transformation.  More information, including how to apply, is available here.

Deadline for submission: July 1, 2011

4) Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life

Imagining America is accepting applications for the following seminar sessions, which will convene at the national conference, September 22-24, 2011, in the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul. Seminars investigate topics of interest to the IA consortium through various forms of pre-conference collaboration and a focused, 90-minute exchange at the conference itself. Many seminars are designed to encourage future collaborations among participants. To run at the Twin Cities event, seminars must garner a minimum of 12 participants. All participants will be considered session presenters and will be listed as such in the conference program.  For more information and to apply, click here.

Deadline for submission: July 15, 2011

--
To opt-out of these messages or change your address, simply edit your profile and group e-mail settings at www.hastac.org/user/5269/edit. If you don't know your password, go to www.hastac.org/user/password and enter your address: annarosebeck@gmail.com.

Volunteer for the Big Draw, April 30, 2011 (RISD)

The RISD Museum of Art is seeking volunteers to offer their time on April 30th for The Big Draw, a community event celebrating the power of the drawing! The day features experimental drawing activities, artist talks, figure drawing and more. Here is a video made from the event last year to give you some flavor:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COY64segtpY

As a volunteer at the event to help man drawing tables, monitor supplies, engage with visitors, etc. Not only will it be a fun celebratory day, I am also giving lunch vouchers to all volunteers for the delicious Rosie's Food Truck, which will be parked on premises.

I am looking to fill shifts that run 10:30-1:30pm and 1:30pm-4:30pm.

Interested folks should email me at ablanc@risd.edu - many thanks! - Aja

--
Aja Blanc
Associate Educator, Youth and Family Programs
Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design
224 Benefit Street
Providence, RI 02903
p. 401-454-6674; f. 401-427-6945

Historic Preservation workshop at Berks

Just a note to check in with folks -- the Berkshire Conference is coming up in June, and there will be a really good workshop on historic preservation led by Michelle Barker of PReservation Mass -- how to write National Register nominations, and the National Historic Landmarks program (concluding with a tour of the Emily Dickinson Museum).

Here's the link to the conference blog: http://blogs.umass.edu/berks/

If you're thinking of doing this, please register soon so we can make sure you get a seat. There are also a lot of good tours on offer -- Historic Deerfield, and the Stowe Center...  Just want to make sure the grad students in our orbit get seats if they want one!

CONF: Material Culture Conference at Winterthur, April 16

Objects in Revolt
Winterthur Museum, Garden & Library
Saturday, April 16, 2011

The Center for Material Culture Studies at the University of
Delaware invites you to attend the Ninth Annual Material Culture Symposium
for Emerging Scholars.

The symposium will consist of nine presentations divided into three
panels. Each presentation is limited to twenty minutes, and each panel is
followed by comments from established scholars in the field. This year's
commentators are as follows:

• Carol E. Henderson, Associate Professor of English and Black
American Studies, University of Delaware

• Katherine Grier, Director of Museum Studies and Professor of
History, University of Delaware

• Thomas Hine, Writer, Scholar, and Guest Lecturer, University
of Pennsylvania and Temple University

We are also pleased to announce David Brody, Assistant Professor of
Design Studies at Parsons The New School for Design, as our keynote speaker.
His remarks will close the symposium.

In addition to listening to presentations and participating in
post-panel discussions, conference attendees will have the opportunity to
tour Winterthur's unparalleled collection of early American decorative arts.
For more information, including abstracts and registration
guidelines, please visit our website:

http://www.udel.edu/materialculture/emerging_scholars.html

The symposium is free and open to the public. We look forward to
your attendance and to a great conference.

2011 Symposium Co-chairs
Virginia Garnett, Department of English
Theodore Triandos, Department of Art History
Alessandra Wood, Department of History, American Civilization
University of Delaware




--
Patrick Cox
Editor, H-MATERIAL CULTURE
PhD Student
2010-2011 David K. Sengstack Fellow
Department of Childhood Studies, Rutgers University
http://childhood.camden.rutgers.edu/
2010 ChLA Hannah Beiter Graduate Student Research Award Recipient
https://email.rutgers.edu/mailman/listinfo/exploring_childhood_studies
<https://email.rutgers.edu/mailman/listinfo/exploring_childhood_studies>
http://www.camden.rutgers.edu/multiple-childhoods/

Berks Conference

What's on Tap for Public Historians at the 2011 Berkshire Conference

This year, in a special effort to connect with the public historians
who preserve and share women's history with broad audiences, the
Berkshire Conference is offering for the first time in its history
reduced rates to members of the National Council on Public History
(partners who are cosponsoring a reception this year) and the New
England Museum Association.  The first-time-at-the-Berks poster
session and also the innovative digital history lab (which will
showcase digital women's history projects; it's not too late to submit
recommendations of sites to feature, to berks@history.umass.edu) each
seek to engage new means of collecting archival material, and new
methods of disseminating our scholarship.

A wide range of tours (to the Emily Dickinson Museum, the Harriet
Beecher Stowe Center, Historic Deerfield, Sojourner Truth's Florence,
and local farms where women are engaged in agriculture) and workshops
(on women's history and historic site interpretation, public
engagement skills for historians, and the preparation of nominations
to the National Register of Historic Places and National Historic
Landmarks programs) encourage conference participants to visits the
museums and historic sites that interpret women's history, and also to
learn new ways to engage public audiences.  As in past years,
documentary films will be shown too, throughout the meeting.

Public historians interested in intersections between historical
insight and theatrical performance may also wish to take in 'Truth,'
an opera based on the life of activist and reformer Sojourner Truth,
developed by Old Deerfield Productions.  Evelyn Harris, a onetime
member of Sweet Honey in the Rock, will perform selections from the
work for conference registrants, after which she and others involved
in the development of the project will engage in a conversation with
the audience about the successes and challenges they've faced as they
work to translate Truth's biography for this genre.

Lastly, the program includes several traditional paper sessions and
roundtables that might be of particular interest to public historians,
either because they engage venues in which public historians practice
or because they present research that draws on material sources.
These include sessions on 'Teaching the Archives,' interpretation at
historic sites and roundtables, the documentation of second wave
feminism through film, the public history of sexuality, and violence
and memory in memorialization. Papers on material culture will explore
religious clothing in the 20th century and other manifestations of
material religion, the documentation and interpretation of women, work
and sewing, and topics in the history of beauty, appearance and
fashion, as well as women's art.

We invite you to explore the offerings at the 2011 Berkshire
Conference on the History of Women at http://blogs.umass.edu/berks/.

NEMA Career Development Workshops

The NEMA Young and Emerging Museum Professionals (YEPs) PAG understands that new and emerging museum professionals have limited budgets to attend workshops, and frequently are unable to miss work for professional development and/or networking events. To break down these barriers faced by those with less than ten years in the field, and those who wish to network with new and emerging professionals, the YEP PAG Chairs have planned a series of workshops that break the mold. Learn, Laugh, Love brings together numerous individuals from various professional positions and levels of seniority, both of local and national stature, to encourage those who are just entering the field, especially career changers, students, and those who are seeking to further their current position, in three informal learning situations, where networking at peer to peer and peer to mentor level are key components. Register for all three and save!

All workshops will be held at Historic New England's Otis House Auditorium.
Each workshop includes light refreshments and is $15 for NEMA and Historic New England Members, $25 for Non-Members.

Members can register for all three workshops for only $40, a savings of $5!
NEMA memberships start at $35 (students/job-hunters/volunteers). Non-members registering for all 3 workshops

LEARN: How to Interview "Big Wig" Speed Dating Style (March 23, 2011)
There's no better way to learn but trial and error. Using the speed dating format, participants will have the opportunity to "interview" with seasoned museum professionals, including Directors, Curators, Educators, Board of Trustee members, and other senior ranking individuals. Each seasoned professional will be armed with a mixture of "favorite" interview questions collected from those who hire in the museum field; workshop participants will rotate between professionals, thus opening the door to meet and learn from those who have immense advice to share on the interviewing process, making the best first impression, and creating a lasting mark with interviewers that leads to a new position.

LAUGH: How to Break into a Tricky Field in a Tough Economy (April 20, 2011)
Sometimes laughter is the best medicine, but how does an emerging museum professional break into a tricky field when museums are facing budget cuts and staff reductions? What does a museum want from a new hire? What skills are needed to be successful in the museum field in 2011? Should you go back to school, attend workshops, and learn how to post to Facebook? When is a job a great fit, and when should you run away if it isn't perfect? These questions and more will be discussed, with an emphasis on making your current skills and abilities appealing to employers. Hear stories from seasoned professionals on starting off in the field, surviving layoffs, and transitioning to new positions. Translating job descriptions into inspiring cover letters and highlighting key resume accomplishments will also be discussed.

LOVE: How to Build Your Resume through Internships, Articles, Conferences, and Presentations (May 11, 2011)
Climbing the museum ladder is definitely labor intensive, but it is a labor of love. Learn how to build your resume by gaining experience beyond traditional nine to five positions. Publishing, presenting, and volunteering are ways to uncover unknown or new museum positions, make contacts, and build a strong resume (and a strong museum professional!). Discover the strategic steps you can take to make yourself more appealing to future employers, and find the best route to positioning yourself for promotions and opportunities throughout the field.

Directions to the Otis House will be emailed with your registration confirmation two weeks prior to the workshop.

Questions? Call NEMA, 781-641-0013.

Presenter Deadline Approaching for Creative Communities Exchange

Present your Creative Economy Work | Deadline to Apply: Feb. 28 EVENT DETAILS What: Creative Communities Exchange When: May 19 & 20, 2011   Where: MASS MoCA North Adams, MA   Registration: $100* * $80 before May 1st  * $65 presenter rate   APPLY TO PRESENT OR  REGISTER TODAY!      Tweet this! #CCENE2011     This event is hosted by NEFA and Berkshire Creative, and sponsored by Autodesk, Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation, MASS MoCA, the Porches Inn and Red Lion Inn, and Art New England. CONTACT Nella Young New England Services Coordinator nyoung@nefa.org 617.951.0010 x529 Individuals with disabilities desiring accommodations should contact NEFA staff by April 1. NEFA SUPPORTS ARTISTS WITH GRANTS AND PROFESSIONAL RESOURCES; ESTABLISHES VITAL CONNECTIONS BETWEEN ARTISTS, ARTS PROGRAMMERS, AND THE PUBLIC; AND STRENGTHENS THE REGION'S CREATIVE ECONOMY THROUGH RESEARCH THAT INFORMS PUBLIC POLICY. Learn more about NEFA. CONNECT WITH NEFA!   NEFA and Berkshire Creative invite you to share creative community building projects with your peers at the Creative Communities Exchange.         Building upon last year's Connecting Creative Communities summit in Providence, RI, the Creative Communities Exchange will offer 32 workshops led by creative and cultural community leaders showcasing model projects in creative economy work at the local level. The gathering promises a dynamic setting for peer-to-peer learning and networking.       PRESENT YOUR PROJECT Create a workshop to present to your fellow creative and cultural leaders. Presenter benefits include: Discounted registration rate (If you are applying to present, please wait to register until after selections have been made.) Consideration for NEFA's inaugural Creative Economy awards Ability to share workshops online after the event Learn more about becoming a presenter. (DEADLINE TO APPLY: February 28, 2011)       MORE INFORMATION Who Should Attend? How Do I Participate/Register? View the schedule. Learn more about the Exchange. Register today!    (COST: $100; $80 before May 1st!)      SPONSORS Event Sponsors Media Sponsor

 

Forward email This email was sent to dschneidman@nefa.org by nyoung@nefa.org |   Update Profile/Email Address | Instant removal with SafeUnsubscribe™ | Privacy Policy. New England Foundation for the Arts | 145 Tremont Street, 7th Floor | Boston | MA | 02111