London & Florence: Arts in Context

Collecting the World in London

Spring 2018 in London

Instructor

Dr. Andrew Kennedy

ak62@soas.ac.uk

Mobile: 07714 380562

Credits

Elective course; 4 semester credits

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Course Syllabus

Course Description

London has dozens of museums, displaying a range of objects from mummies to fans, toys to tropical plants. This course looks at museums not simply as institutions of enlightenment, but as enactments of power – power over the past; over colonised or subjugated peoples; over life, death and disease; over nature. How have museums attempted to classify the world? In doing so, what is the price paid for taking things or living entities out of their original context? We examine questions of repatriation: should museums return objects and human remains in their collections? What is the need to display material artefacts in a digital age? Are there other ways of creating ‘authentic’ experiences? What concession (if any) should museums make to commercialism? Are they for education or entertainment? Is there a middle way between elitism and populism?

Course Objectives

- To enable students to develop analytical skills which will allow them to explore the meanings of museum displays and architecture.

- To enable students to develop a broad knowledge of the historical development of museums and exhibition spaces, and how this has been shaped by social and political forces.

- To enable student to begin to form an overview of the development of different categories of museum, and their associated frameworks of interpretation

- To enable students to begin to distinguish and evaluate curatorial strategies.

- To enable students to develop their research, oral and written skills in order to organise and give expression to museological analysis and reflection.

Required Texts

General reading (in general folder):

• Sharon MacDonald, ed., A Companion to Museum Studies, Blackwell, 2006

• Tony Bennett, ‘The Exhibitionary Complex’,‖ In Representing the Nation: A Reader (David Boswell and Jessica Evans, eds.) (London: Routledge, 1999), 332- 361.

Course Schedule

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Week 1—Museums as Power-Knowledge: Collecting, classifying, and narrating

Wed 28 March, 11.30am-1pm: Monticello Class; 2-4.30pm British Museum (meet South – ie Main - Entrance).

Public museums emerge out of the 18th century Enlightenment. Using reason, ‘we’ (who is this ‘we’?) collect and classify the world, on universal principles. But is this analytical reason disinterested, or is it connected to a will to power? Is it universal, or Eurocentric? And what is the role, if any, of individual subjectivity in this new regime?

Reading: Mark O’Neill, ‘Enlightenment Museums: Universal or merely Global?’, Museum and Society, Nov 2004. 2 (3) 190-202; Donald Preziosi, ‘Art History and Museology’, in MacDonald, S., ed. A Companion to Museum Studies, 2006 [general folder] chapter 4, pp.57-62. Additional reading: James Cuno, ‘Antiquity belongs to the World’, 2008.

Thurs 29 March, 11-12.30: Visit Migration Museum, Lambeth.

Addressing migration, race and racism through our visit to the Lambeth museum allows us to consider how Enlightenment narratives, referred to above, exclude or clash with other narratives.

Reading: [tbc]

Week 2—Art, Design, Taste and Empire: How did Britain’s imperial role shape its art and design museums?

Mon 2 April, all day: Victoria and Albert Museum; Albertopolis (South Kensington tube)

How did the South Kensington museums create an imperial spectacle and a new relation to (inter)national heritage for the Victorian masses? In what ways does the museum nowadays engage with that legacy?

Reading: Arieff “Reading the Victoria and Albert Museum”; Adams, “The V&A: Empire to Multiculturalism?”; Barringer “The South Kensington museums” [all articles in Albertopolis folder on site]

Wed 4 April: 11-1am, Monticello class; 2-4pm John Soane Museum (Holborn tube)

Thurs 5 April: 10-12 Wallace Collection (Bond St tube, walk to Manchester Square)

How far do art museums reinforce social class? Do they create distinctions between those with taste and knowledge, and those without? To what extent does the move from the nobleman’s gallery to the public gallery represent progress?

Reading: Carol Duncan, ‘The Universal Survey Museum’; Pierre Bourdieu, ‘Distinction and the Aristocracy of Culture’, from Distinction, 1984.

Week 3—The Collection as Self-Portrait?

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Wed 11 April, Day Trip: Oxford - Ashmolean Museum, Museum of the History of Science, Pitt Rivers Museum and the Museum of Natural History The anti-Harry Potter tour. An opportunity to focus in a different context on key themes of the course such as the cabinet of curiosities, the taste for classicism (the Ashmolean), Eurocentric classification schemes and the imposition of narratives on the natural world (Pitt-Rivers/Natural History Museums). Readings; Annie Coombes, ‘Museums and the Formation of National and Cultural Identities’, 1988; A. Macgregor, ed., Tradescant’s Rarities, 1983 BBC ‘In Our Time’ programme on Pitt-Rivers, http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01qwgxx Thurs 12 April, 11-1, class at SOAS, Russell Square.

Week 4—Tea and Sugar: Questioning the Imperial Legacy

Mon 16 April, 2-5pm: visit to Museum of London Docklands, West India Quay DLR

Wed 18 April, 11-1: Monticello class; 2-4.30: Petrie and Grant Museums; Wellcome Collection (Euston Square tube)

Thurs 19 April, 10-12: Horniman Museum, south London (meet London Bridge railway station, 9.15am) Our site visits this week address the legacy of empire in different ways. The Docklands museum has an exhibition on London, Sugar and Slavery. The Horniman museum owes its existence to another commodity: tea; with the wealth from his dealings in the imperial tea trade, Frederick Horniman was able to lay the basis for a very popular South London museum. On the Wednesday, we examine how empire and university education were/are intertwined. Readings: Docklands folder, site; Annie Coombes, ‘Museums and the Formation of National and Cultural Identities’ 1988 [re Horniman]; Petrie Museum of Egyptian Antiquities brochure [introduction]; Kathryn Sheppard, ‘Flinders Petrie and Eugenics at UCL’, 2010.[site]; http://www.medicalmuseums.org/

[Midterm deadline Friday 20 April, midnight]

Week 5—Nationalism and Nostalgia

Mon 23 April, 8.30-11am[TBC]: Houses of Parliament with Dennis Skinner MP [optional: 12-1.30 Whitehall walk] [optional: Tues 24 April, 2-5pm Imperial War Museum, Lambeth North]

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Can we consider the nation as a kind of dusty museum, full of narratives of dubious provenance? How do the buildings of Parliament lend themselves to such an interpretation? How does a tour of the 19th c. ‘Mother of Parliaments’ led by an ex-miner unsettle such narratives? Museums and the Creation of Nostalgia

Wed 25 April, 11-1: Monticello class; 2.30-4.30: Museum of Childhood (meet 10.45am, Bethnal Green tube) Thurs 26 April, 10-12 Museum of Brands (meet 9.50am Ladbroke Grove tube) Nostalgia seems to be central both to popular or mass culture and to personal and national identity. What kind of relationship to the past and to the present does nostalgia construct? How do real or fictive memories enable the construction of childhood? Readings: Sharon Roberts, ‘Minor concerns: representations of children and childhood’, 2006; Svetlana Boym, ‘Nostalgia and its discontents’, 2007 [site]

Week 6: Museums and Heritage: A Costume Drama?

Mon 30 April, 11-5: Hampton Court trip (jointly with heritage class) In the final week, we consider the role of museums in staging identity, not only in terms of (say) costume and dress, but in the broader sense of the performance of social rituals. Readings: Lipscomb, “Historical Authenticity and Interpretative Strategy at Hampton Court” [site]; Dolman and Thurley articles [site] Wed 2 May, 11-1: Monticello class Fri 4 May, 10-12: Fashion and Textile Museum, Bermondsey. Reading: [tbc]

Week 7: Life Under Glass: Collecting Nature

Wed 9 May: Day trip - Kew Gardens (11.30am-4pm)

Thurs 10 May, 10am-12pm: Garden Museum, Lambeth

[Friday 11 May, midnight: Final essay hand-in]

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How do zoological exhibitions and botanical gardens dramatise our dominion over nature? Is this dominion derived from the Bible, from modern science, or even from male attitudes to a ‘female’ nature? How have empire and globalisation changed our relationship to the natural world? In what ways did gardening become associated with Englishness and Britishness?

Readings: C. Yanni, ‘Divine Display or Secular Science’, 1996; J. Murphy, ‘Environment and Imperialism’, 2009; C. Merchant, ‘Dominion Over Nature’, 1980; Lucile Brockway, ‘Plant Imperialism’ http://www.britishempire.co.uk/science/agriculture/plantimperialism.htm

Assessment and Expectations

Participation and class activities (20% of marks)

Credit is awarded for active participation and class work; that is to say, answering and asking questions, doing group work and in-class writing, etc. Students are expected to attend all scheduled classes and visits. Missing a class or visit in such an abbreviated schedule will result in losing points.

Short (7-10 minute) classroom presentation (15% of marks)

Examine a museum building or display for what it may tell us about museum narratives. Reference sources, and remember to use academic sources, among others.

Mid-term assignment (1600-1800 word essay – 35% of marks) [due Fri 20 April]

Choosing two museum buildings, displays or exhibitions, analyse and compare what kind of stories they tell. Please use an appropriate range of academic and possibly other sources, including the buildings/displays/exhibitions themselves, and, where appropriate, selected objects therein. Do not write fewer than 1600 or more than 1800 words, excluding bibliography.

Final written assignment (1400-1600 word essay – 30% of marks) [due Fri 11 May]

Consider a museum or museum displays in relation to one of the following topics in weeks 5-6: medicine and the body; the display of the natural world; nostalgia and/or nationalism. Please use an appropriate range of academic and possibly other sources, as well as London and/or Oxford case studies. Do not write fewer than 1400 or more than 1600 words, excluding bibliography.

Grades

Some students believe they should earn at least a B for writing a paper that adheres, more or less, to the assignment’s basic criteria. However, it takes more than that to earn a superior grade, such as an A or a B.

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A – An A essay is outstanding in all four areas: content, organisation, style and presentation. It is exceptionally written, well-developed (displaying originality and depth of thought), well-organized, and nearly free of presentational errors. An essay that earns an A is good enough to be used as a textbook example.

B – A paper that earns a B is well-written, well-developed, well-organized, and free of major errors. It has several minor problems and perhaps lacks the originality, depth of thought or complex sentence structure found in an A paper. It demonstrates good writing skills and exceeds the basic requirements of the assignment.

C – A paper that earns a C is competent and has adequately met the assignment’s requirements, but it may have a significant problem (such as the lack of supporting examples or a lack of organization) or several minor ones, such as the need for more transitions, recurring problems with presentation, etc.

D – This is a paper that falls significantly short in many areas. It has recurring and/or significant problems, such as unclear sentence structure, incomplete or run-on sentences, an overall lack of organization, weak paragraph development, or an unclear thesis. A student may also earn a D (or an F) on a paper if the paper’s topic does not adhere to the assignment.

Grading criteria for papers

Adapted from Sharon Trotter-Martin, Center for Teaching & Learning, Knox College Your paper will be evaluated in terms of content, organisation, style and presentation. You should imagine your reader as a “general reader,” someone with a college education but who is unfamiliar or at best, slightly familiar, with the particular text(s) you are referring to. Try to make your paper insightful and enjoyable to read.

• Content: Each paper must have a clear thesis statement that is fully supported with plenty of specific and concrete examples. Additional credit will be given for originality and depth of thought.

• Organisation of your information includes having one major idea per paragraph, the order of sentences in a paragraph, the order of paragraphs in the paper, as well as the use of smooth transitions.

• Use the appropriate writing style (not too formal or too casual) for an assignment.

• Presentation refers to comma usage, spelling, an avoidance of run-ons and sentence fragments, etc, neat layout, stapling.

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ACM Policies on Academics

A complete listing of ACM policies can be found in your student handbook.

Class attendance and participation

You are expected to attend and participate fully in all classroom sessions, site visits, and field trips.

Academic honesty

Actions of dishonesty are destructive to the well-being of the academic community, and ACM staff respond to them vigorously. Cheating, plagiarism, and other forms of academic theft will result in a failing grade for that assignment and may result in failure for the course.

ACM Policy on Non-Discrimination

The Associated Colleges of the Midwest does not discriminate in the operation of its educational programs, activities, or employment on the basis of sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, race, color, religion, national origin, age, veteran status, marital status, or disability.