Museum Meanings
About the Book Series
Museums have undergone enormous changes in recent decades; an ongoing process of renewal and transformation bringing with it changes in priority, practice and role, as well as new expectations, philosophies, imperatives and tensions that continue to attract attention from those working in, and drawing upon, wide-ranging disciplines.
Museum Meanings presents new research that explores diverse aspects of the shifting social, cultural and political significance of museums and their agency beyond, as well as within, the cultural sphere. Interdisciplinary, cross-cultural and international perspectives and empirical investigation are brought to bear on the exploration of museums’ relationships with their various publics (and analysis of the ways in which museums shape – and are shaped by – such interactions).
Theoretical perspectives might be drawn from anthropology, cultural studies, art and art history, learning and communication, media studies, architecture and design and material culture studies, amongst others. Museums are understood very broadly – including art galleries, historic sites and other cultural heritage institutions – as are their relationships with diverse constituencies.
The Series Editors invite proposals that explore the political and social significance of museums and their ethical implications. If you have an idea for a book that you think would be appropriate for the series, then please contact the Series Editors to discuss further.
Museum Texts: Comunication Frameworks
1st Edition
By Louise Ravelli
January 20, 2006
Answering key questions in the study of how museums communicate, Louise Ravelli provides a set of frameworks to investigate the complexities of communication in museums: * What is an appropriate level of complexity for a written label?* Why do some choice in language make a more direct relation to ...
Reshaping Museum Space
1st Edition
Edited
By Suzanne Macleod
July 19, 2005
Reshaping Museum Space pulls together the views of an international group of museum professionals, architects, designers and academics highlights the complexity, significance and malleability of museum space, and provides reflections upon recent developments in museum architecture and ...
Pasts Beyond Memory: Evolution, Museums, Colonialism
1st Edition
By Tony Bennett
July 01, 2004
Contributing to current debates on relationships between culture and the social, and the the rapidly changing practices of modern museums as they seek to shed the legacies of both evolutionary conceptions and colonial science, this important new work explores how evolutionary museums developed in ...
Liberating Culture: Cross-Cultural Perspectives on Museums, Curation and Heritage Preservation
1st Edition
By Christina Kreps
March 21, 2003
Using examples of indigenous models from Indonesia, the Pacific, Africa and native North America, Christina Kreps illustrates how the growing recognition of indigenous curation and concepts of cultural heritage preservation is transforming conventional museum practice. Liberating Culture ...
Re-Imagining the Museum: Beyond the Mausoleum
1st Edition
By Andrea Witcomb
December 30, 2002
Re-Imagining the Museum presents new interpretations of museum history and contemporary museum practices. Through a range of case studies from the UK, North America and Australia, Andrea Witcomb moves away from the idea that museums are always 'conservative' to suggest they have a long history of ...
Museums, Society, Inequality
1st Edition
Edited
By Richard Sandell
March 15, 2002
Museums, Society, Inequality explores the wide-ranging social roles and responsibilities of the museum. It brings together international perspectives to stimulate critical debate, inform the work of practitioners and policy makers, and to advance recognition of the purpose, responsibilities and ...
Museums and the Interpretation of Visual Culture
1st Edition
By Eilean Hooper-Greenhill
October 25, 2000
This is a multi-disciplinary study that adopts an innovative and original approach to a highly topical question, that of meaning-making in museums, focusing its attention on pedagogy and visual culture.This work explores such questions as: How and why is it that museums select and arrange ...
Museum, Media, Message
1st Edition
Edited
By Eilean Hooper-Greenhill
February 11, 1999
Collecting together a group of talented writers, Museum, Media, Message considers, in depth, the most up-to-date approaches to museum communication including: museums as media; museums and audience; and the evaluation of museums. Addressing the need for museums to develop better knowledge of ...
Learning in the Museum
1st Edition
By George E. Hein
April 21, 1998
Learning in the Museum examines major issues and shows how research in visitor studies and the philosophy of education can be applied to facilitate a meaningful educational experience in museums. Hein combines a brief history of education in public museums, with a rigorous examination of how the ...
Colonialism and the Object: Empire, Material Culture and the Museum
1st Edition
Edited
By Tim Barringer, Tom Flynn
January 16, 1998
Drawing together an international group of scholars from a variety of disciplinary and cultural backgrounds, Colonialism and the Object explores the impact of colonial contact with other cultures on the material culture of both the colonized and the imperial nation. The book includes intensive ...