Fine Arts/Cultural Encounters 220: The Museum as Cultural Crossroads

St. Lawrence University
The Cultural Encounters Program

Dr. Dorothy Limouze
(315) 379-5185

Course Outline and Objectives:
This course has been initiated in connection with the Cultural Encounters Program at St. Lawrence University. It is therefore designed to meet both the criteria of 200-level Art History courses and to reflect Phase 2 of the Cultural Encounters track, the investigation of the dynamics of cultural interaction between the "west" and the "non-west." The course explores the museum as a largely western phenomenon and as a lens through which the western world views other cultures. Readings and class discussions will consider such topics as the history of collecting and the origins of the great western museums, the growth of museums in the eras of colonial empires and superpowers, the politics of collection and public display, the role of museums in constructing and mediating cultural "otherness", and the museum as redefined by post-colonial and postmodern thought. This course is therefore not a "training course" or practicum for the museum profession, but rather a critique of the institution, that will familiarize students both with its history and with contemporary critical appraisals.

Course Assignments:

I. Completion of required readings; participation in class discussion; attendance of field trips': This course will involve some lecture but will be strongly oriented towards in-class discussion of readings. Students will also be required to attend scheduled field trips (3, listed below), and on-campus events.

II. Journals: Students are required to keep a journal in which they reflect upon and critique readings and other materials and activities related to the course. Entries must be made in the journal twice per week, and must be at least two full pages each (single spaced, handwritten). Due dates for journal entries written thus far are scheduled at various parts of the term.

III. Written Assignments/creative assignments: Many of these will be in-class; due dates otherwise indicated. Written up descriptions of these assignments will be handed out two weeks or more prior to the due date. These assignments will include the following: critiques of field trips and on-campus events; and the final project, which is your plan for an ideal museum, and should reflect your readings throughout the term, and your field trips. This project will be presented in class and submitted on as a paper at the end of the term.

Readings:

The following four texts must be purchased for this course from the university bookstore:

Annie Coombes, Reinventing Africa: Museums, Material Culture and Popular Imagination in Late Edwardian England. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994.
Carol Duncan, Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums. London: Routledge. 1995.
John Elsner and Roger Cardinal, eds. The Cultures of Collecting. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1994.
Sally Price, Primitive Art in Civilized Places. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. 1991.

A further, optional text on sale at the bookstore is: Ivan Karp and Steven Lavine, Exhibiting Cultures. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institute Press. 1991.

Grading System

Class Activities and Participation 30%
Final Presentation and Paper 25% (each)
Other writings/creative assignments 20%


Schedule of Classes:

Week I

Class 1 Course introduction; the concept of "Museum" and how museums operate.

Class 2 Recent Controversies and the ethics of international collecting.

Readings: For Wednesday, three exposes of the museum world from popular journals

Week II

Class 3 Otherness as a motivation for collecting objects and data; Video, Trinh-Minh-ha, Reassemblage

Class 4 The early history of western collecting: collecting as a cultural encounter.

Readings: Edward said, Orientalism (introduction); Donna Haraway, "The Teddy Bear Patriarchy," from Primate Visions. Elsner and Cardinal, chs. 9, 7, 6. Field Trip to Remington Art Museum on Saturday.

Week III

Class 5 Collectors' Museums: science, cultural imperialism, and object worship.

Class 6 The Foundation of Great Western Museums

Readings: Elsner and Cardinal, chs. 10, 8; Duncan, Chs. 1, 2, 3, 4

Week IV

Class 7 The Epistemology of Museum Display

Class 8 Field trip to the National Gallery of Canada and the Natural History Museum, Ottawa

Readings: Ludmila Jordanova, "Objects of Knowledge." from Peter Vergo, ed., The New Museology. Cultures. Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, "Objects of Ethnography," in Karp and Lavine, Exhibiting Cultures.

Week V

Class 9 Cultures on Display: Africa as a Case Study. Discuss field trip.

Class 10 Cultures on Display, II:

Readings: Coombes, Introduction and Ch. 1, 4, 5, 6.

Week VI

Class 11 Containment and Marginalization: Africa viewed by Western eyes.

Class 12 Containment and Mariginalization: Entarte Kunst

Readings: Coombes, Chs. 3, 7. Krupat, "The Concept of the Canon," from The Voice in the Margins.

Week VII

Class 13-14 Museums and Marketing

Readings: For Wednesday, Neil Harris, Cultural Excursions, chs. 3, 7.

Week VIII

Class 15 Video, "In and Out of Africa"

Class 16 Art Historical Methods and Fallacies: Connoisseurship and Determinations of "Quality"

Readings: Sidney Kasfir, "African Art and Authenticity"; Price, Ch. 1.

Week IX

Class 17 Class Run discussions of Price, chs. 2-4

Week X

Class 18 Class Run discussions of Price, Chs. 5-7

Class 19 Viewing and Discussion of video, "Latuko"

Week XI

Class 20 Native American Art and European Perceptions

Class 21 How Some Museums Tackle the Problematics of Display

Readings: Susan Vogel, "Always True to the Object, in our Fashion," and James Clifford, "Four Northwest Coast Museums," in Karp and Lavine; Janet Burlo and Ruth Phillips, "The Problematics of Collecting and Display, part I" Art Bulletin LXXVII, no. 1 (March 1995), pp.5-10.

Week XII

Class 22 Field Trip to Canadian Museum of Civilization, Hull

Class 23 Women in Museums

Readings: George MacDonald, A Museum for the Global Village; Kendall Taylor, Robert Sullivan, Heather Paul, and Barbara Clark Smith, Gender Perspectives: Essays on Women in Museums.

Week XIII

Class 24 Viewing and Discussion of Videos: "At the Museum," and "Between the Frames."

Class 25-27 Student Presentations. Final Papers due last class.