Cvoro, Uros 2012 0-7734-2547-0 216 pages A study explaining a new role for the National Museum of Australia in the political and cultural background of Australia.
Bowman, John 2010 0-7734-3634-0 428 pages Robert Proctor will always be remembered among bibliographers for two things: for his rearrange¬ment of the incunabula in the British Museum in what has become known as ‘Proctor order’, based on the way in which printing spread in its early days; and for the mystery which continues to surround his death. In 1899 he started to keep a private diary, and this lasted until his death in 1903. One of the volumes is missing, but the remaining three are edited and published for the first time here.
Aagaard-Mogensen, Lars 1989 0-88946-334-4 248 pages A collection of fifteen essays addressing the nature and purpose in today's society of the museum: "one of the few cultural institutions with an indisputable future," a cultural force in itself that exhibits general characteristics of human understanding and values.
Weiss, Kathryn 2008 0-7734-5121-8 256 pages Through the lenses of Multimodal literacy and material rhetoric, this book examines the site where, in 1970, Ohio National Guardsmen dispersing a Vietnam War protest shot into a crowd of Kent State students, killing four and wounding nine. Weiss brings twelve local visitors to the area three decades later and explores the role that subsequent construction, including an official memorial, plays in its local public sphere. Overall, the study offers two significant contributions to the related fields of literacy and rhetoric. This book contains eleven black and white photographs.
Laugesen, Amanda 2006 0-7734-5622-8 260 pages This book is a study of the establishment and development of historical societies in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century American West. It concentrates on the people who created the historical societies of Kansas, Oregon, and Wisconsin, from the first charter generation through to the first generation of professional historical society workers. Through museums, libraries, involvement in historical celebrations and the making of monuments and markers, historical societies played a critical, and hitherto unexamined, role in shaping public historical consciousness in the American West. While the development of professional history in the United States at the end of the 19th century and early 20th century has been closely examined, few studies have adequately considered the role of those outside the academy in the process of history-making, and none have properly examined the role of the state of historical societies – this study fills in an important gap in our knowledge.
Malt, Carol 2012 0-7734-3080-6 272 pages This book documents the development of museums as agents for women’s empowerment in Morocco and how the existing programming and physical facilities of museums can be effectively used to benefit women culturally, politically, economically, and personally. Also, identified are the relevant issues of public/private space, discrimination, image reinterpretation, global awareness and gender equality. It augments the author’s previous publications on women’s empowerment and concludes that Moroccan society is slowly becoming ‘feminized’ due to the emergence of women as civil servants, curators, political activists, voters and participants in the higher educational system.
Ostwald, Michael J. 2007 0-7734-5393-8 220 pages In the years since the completion of Jørn Utzon’s Sydney Opera House countries throughout the South Pacific have displayed a particular fascination with the possibility that architecture may be able to embody regional cultural identity. This book examines a number of major museums, art galleries and cultural centers that have been constructed in Australia, New Zealand and the South Pacific regions. The majority of these buildings, landscapes or structures have been completed in the last few years and all have employed different architectural strategies to shape their designs. This collection of nine critical essays by leading scholars of contemporary architecture provides an important survey and assessment of Antipodean cultural architecture. Emphasizing common traits, the introduction to the text asks how this phenomenon might be understood and why it may be relevant in different regions around the world. Acknowledging the pluralistic nature of Antipodean architecture, the conclusion offers an alternative hermeneutical framework, one that accepts the fragmentary nature of the contemporary cultural landscape.
Allen, Garth 2005 0-7734-6016-0 256 pages The resolution of conflict caused through the failure to recognise the legitimacy of reasonable differences of view is one of the key challenges for all those who prefer to see political processes in train in search of solutions to the conflict caused by illegitimate intolerance. The authors draw on theoretical developments in cultural studies and in the theory and practice of ICT in order to explore the contribution that the museum might make to the reconciliation of seemingly incommensurate viewpoints. They draw on empirical work on the ‘Legends of our Times’ exhibition in Canada where they apply a novel research methodology to explore the impact of the exhibition on young people’s learning.
Anyone concerned with clarifying their thinking concerning the meaning and significance of the inter-relationships between culture, heritage and identity should find the unique approach offered here stimulating and controversial. For people directly involved in the museum and heritage business, for the first time, the role of the museum as a ‘sacred space,’ built on the creation of exhibits through a theory and practice of ‘constructed neutrality,’ is fully developed. The authors tackle the crucial question of how we encourage people to develop a deeper sense of belonging, or community, without that process in itself leading to more formal or rigid exclusions of those who do not belong; the museum, they argue, can and should promote toleration in an increasingly intolerant world.