Product Description
Using international examples, the author shows that most societies preserve objects of special value and meaning, though they may not be easily recognizable as "museums" to an outsider. Christina Kreps advocates the liberation of culture from the management regimes of Eurocentric museology, and the restoration of people's rights to the control and management of their own cultural heritage.This book will expand the definition of the field and demonstrate that there is not one universal museology, but many. ... Read more

Product Description
The Bibliotheca Alexandrina was launched with great fanfare in the 1990s, a project of UNESCO and the Egyptian government to recreate the glory of the Alexandria Library and Museion of the ancient world. The project and its timing were curious—it coincided with scholarship moving away from the dominance of the western tradition; it privileged Alexandria’s Greek heritage over 1500 years of Islamic scholarship; and it established an island for the cultural elite in an urban slum. Beverley Butler’s ethnography of the project explores these contradictions, and the challenges faced by Egyptian and international scholars in overcoming them. Her critique of the underlying foundational concepts and values behind the Library is of equal importance, a nuanced postcolonial examination of memory, cultural revival, and homecoming. In this, she draws upon a wide array of thinkers: Freud, Derrida, Said, and Bernal, among others. Butler’s book will be of great value to museologists, historians, archaeologists, cultural scholars, and heritage professionals. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Contents
cloth as metaphor:

Nigerian Textiles from the Museum of Cultural History

by jean borgatti

1983

monograph series: number 20 ~ museum of cultural history UCLA

contents

foreword ~ acknowledgements ~ maps ~ introduction

the fabric of life

cloth as symbol

colth as metaphor

the fabric of scupture: commemorative mask, aminague

the making of a masquerade

notes ~ bibliography

calatogue of museum collection

men's weave

women's weave: nupe weaving, akwete weaving

mill-woven: adire cloth, pelete bite cloth

non-woven

notes


... Read more

Product Description

Presents studies focusing on world view and cultural change from five Amazonian communities. Documents some of the results of modernizing influences from the outside as well as some of the underlying ideologies used to interpret these influences.

Table of Contents

Editor's Preface

1. Candoshi Behavior Change Sheila C. Tuggy
2. Water, Rock, and Smoke: A Guanano View of the World Carolyn Waltz
3. Nature and Culture in Four Karitiana Legends Rachel M. Landin
4. Problems in Paumari Acculturation Shirley Chapman
5. Urubu-Kaapor Girls' Puberty Rites Kiyoko Kakumasu

Product Description
In case of earthquake, floods, or human-caused emergencies such as fires, how does a cultural institution protect the people on site, its collections, and the premises from harm? Building an Emergency Plan provides a step-by-step guide that a cultural institution can follow to develop its own emergency preparedness and response strategy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

"Must" reading for all museum and gallery professionals.
Compiled by the collaborative efforts of Valerie Dorge and Sharon Jones, Building An Emergency Plan: A Guide For Museums And Other Cultural Institutions provides concise and practical "how to" informationto help professionals develop site-specific plans to protect museum and artinstitute visitors, staff, premises, and collections in the event of anemergency. Building An Emergency Plan is an guide manual taking readersstep-by-step through the process of devising an emergency plan tailored tohis or her specific institution. Dorge and Jones advocate a team approachand outline the responsibilities of the director, the emergencypreparedness manager, and departmental team leaders. The text is "userfriendly" in format and includes "Questions to Consider" andSuggested Exercises" that aid the reader to identify and address theirinstitution's particular needs. Building An Emergency Plan is enhancedfurther with emergency preparedness maters such as evacuation procedures,supply and equipment lists, and action checklists. While Building AnEmergency Plan cannot avoid the occupance of disasters to the institution,it can go a long, long way toward mitigating the adverse consequences ofthem and facilitate the return of operations to normal as quickly aspossible. ... Read more

Product Description
The Philadelphia area is rich in cultural capital; its assemblage of museums, historic sites, and libraries is unsurpassed in this nation. Cultural Connections is a guide to this wealth, exploring the holdings of these numerous institutions and the reasons our society has come to treasure certain works of art and artifice, and particular books, manuscripts, and natural specimens. Addressing broad themes in American history and culture, Morris J. Vogel illuminates the vast collection of objects held by the cultural institutions of the Delaware Valley. With reference to more than two hundred and fifty full-color illustrations, he draws connections between the holdings of one museum and those of others in an effort to reflect on how Americans have thought about culture in making sense of their experience as a people.

The reader of Cultural Connections will catch a glimpse of the spectacular galleries of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the period rooms of Wintertbur as well as explore the treasures of the lesser-known American Philosophical Society, Wagner Institute, and the Mercer Museum, among others. The impressive array of cultural artifacts that reside in this region will astonish any lifelong resident, history buff, or sophisticated visitor to the Delaware Valley. In addition to commenting on the fabulous displays, Vogel discusses how such institutions evolved, what roles they play in the broader society, and how various groups—patrons and professionals, volunteers and visitors—interact within (and without) their walls.

The more than eighty art and science museums, libraries, and historical sites, that belong to the Museum Council of Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley are used to reveal the nature and breadth of the cultural enterprise in this country.

Tracing the origins of Philadelphia's cultural and scientific institutions in the formative years of the American republic, examining the effects of the later economic expansion and rise of fortunes in the mid- and late 19th century, exploring the notion of progress and the place it occupies in institutions of formal culture, and considering the importance of reinterpreting the past, Cultural Connections is a journey through the treasures to be found in your own backyard.

With Cultural Connections, Temple University Press initiates a series about Philadelphia's diverse cultural resources. The William Penn Foundation has generously provided the means to make these thought-provoking guides available.

The exquisite design and exacting production standards for this volume have achieved an exciting, almost poster-like display together with a deeply satisfying reading experience. Cultural Connections was designed with a unique structural design concept that totally integrates text, art, and captions within each two-page spread. Relying on neither the art catalog format nor the academic art book format, the designer recognized and balanced the individual and interrelated importance of each element. The printer was chosen from among art book specialists in five different countries for its extraordinary color reproduction. ... Read more

Product Description
Museums can be seen as the product of complex negotiations between administrators, politicians, economic interest groups, professional lobbies, and various sections of public opinion, all of whom expect the museum to serve the interest and express their own particular views about the relationships between science, technology, industry, and society. The essays in this volume stem from a conference held at the Cité des Sciences et de l´Industrie in Paris in 1992. They explore the founding and funding of museums of science and technology and examine how the museums themselves have coped with the constraints and sometimes contradictory expectations placed upon them.
As well as presenting valuable insights into the limitations and problems that museums of technology face today, the essays in this collection provide thought-provoking comment on technology's place in society and will be of interest to those with a wider interest in the relationship between science and society as a whole. ... Read more