Companion To Museum Studies

A Companion to Museum Studies captures the multidisciplinary approaches to the study of the development, roles, and significance of museums in contemporary society. It is an indispensable reference for art historians, museum curators, and art and culture lovers.
Collects first-rate original essays by leading figures from a range of disciplines and theoretical stances, including anthropology, art history, history, literature, sociology, cultural studies, and museum studies
Examines the complexity of the museum from cultural, political, curatorial, historical and representational perspectives
Covers traditional subjects, such as space, display, buildings, objects and collecting, and more contemporary challenges such as visiting, commerce, community and experimental exhibition forms

Sharon Macdonald is Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Manchester. Her books include Theorizing Museums (edited with Gordon Fyfe, Blackwell 1996), Reimagining Culture (1997), The Politics of Display (ed., 1998), Behind the Scenes at the Science Museum (2002), and Exhibition Experiments (edited with Paul Basu, Blackwell 2007).

List of Illustrations.
Notes on Contributors.
Acknowledgments.
Bibliographical Note.
1. Expanding Museum Studies: an Introduction (Sharon Macdonald).
Part I: Perspectives, Disciplines, Concepts.
Introduction.
2. Cultural Theory and Museum Studies (Rhiannon Mason).
3. Sociology and the Social Aspects of Museums (Gordon Fyfe).
4. Art History and Museology: Rendering the Visible Legible (Donald Preziosi).
5. Museums and Anthropologies. Practices and Narratives (Anthony Alan Shelton).
6. Collecting Practices (Sharon Macdonald).
7. The Conundrum of Ephemerality: Time, Memory and Museums (Susan A. Crane).
Part II. Histories, Heritage, Identities.
Introduction.
8. The Origins of the Public Museum (Jeffrey Abt).
9. World's Fairs and Museums (Robert W. Rydell).
10. Making and Remaking National Identities (Flora Edouwaye S. Kaplan).
11. Museums and Community (Elizabeth Crooke).
12. Re-staging Histories and Identities (Rosmarie Beier-de Haan).
13. Heritage (Steven Hoelscher).
Part III. Architecture, Space, Media.
Introduction.
14. Museum Architecture: a Brief History (Michaela Giebelhausen).
15. Insight versus Entertainment. Untimely Meditations on the Architecture of 20th-Century Art Museums (Vittorio Magnago Lampugnani).
16. Civic Seeing: Museums and the Organisation of Vision (Tony Bennett).
17. Spatial Syntax: the Language of Museum Space (Bill Hillier and Kali Tzortzi).
18. New Media (Michelle Henning).
Part IV. Visitors, Learning, Interacting: Introduction.
19. Living in a Learning Society: Museums and Free-Choice Learning (John H. Falk, Lynn D. Dierking and Marianna Adams).
20. Museum Education (George E. Hein).
21. Interactivity: Thinking Beyond (Andrea Witcomb).
22. Studying Visitors (Eilean Hooper-Greenhill).
Part V. Globalization, Profession, Practice.
Introduction.
23. Globalization: In-Corporating the Museum (Mark W. Rectanus).
24. Cultural Economics (Bruno S. Frey and Stephan Meier).
25. The Museum Profession (Patrick J. Boylan).
26. Museum Ethics (Tristram Besterman).
27. Museum Practice: Legal Issues (Patty Gerstenblith).
28. Non-Western Models of Museums and Curation in Cross-Cultural Perspective (Christina Kreps).
Part VI. Culture Wars, Transformations, Futures.
Introduction.
29. Incivilities in Civil(-ized) Places: "Culture Wars" in Comparative Perspective (Steven C. Dubin).
30. Science Museums and the Culture Wars (Steven Conn).
31. Postmodern Restructurings (Nick Prior).
32. Exposing the Public (Mieke Bal).
33. The Future of Museums (Charles Saumarez Smith).
Index.