Development, Fundraising, and Grantsmanship G49.2221 Lineker. 4 points.
Overview of organizational development principles as they relate to the fundraising and grantsmanship process. Topics include sources of funding, current trends, and fundraising techniques, earned income, public relations, volunteers, and membership. Includes a practicum in proposal writing and work experience with an art organization in program development and fundraising.

Museum Conservation and Contemporary Culture G49.2222 Wharton. 4 points.
As an introduction to museum conservation, this seminar combines classroom discussion with museum laboratory visits to provide an understanding of how conservation functions in the context of contemporary culture. The seminar is divided into three broad topics: museum collections care, the history and philosophy of western conservation, and the conservation of modern and contemporary art. It provides technical information about how artifacts age in the museum environment while examining conflicts that arise between professional and non-professional stakeholders. The seminar addresses concerns of living artists as well as indigenous groups and others with claims to the disposition and care of cultural materials. While enrollment is open to all NYU graduate students, priority will be given to Museum Studies students with research interests in exhibition and collections management.

Local Museums, Historic Houses, and Sites G49.2223 Long, Trask. 4 points
This course will examine the cultural politics that influence reuse of historic spaces for museums and other public purposes. Through course readings, site visits and individual archival research, students will explore sites ranging from historic houses and period rooms presented as museum installations to restored villages and communities to dramatic reuse of historic space for cultural tourism. Examining case studies of various interpretations of historic space, students will pay particular attention to the social and political context in which both original use and reuse took place by analyzing primary documents that illustrate both motivations and strategy for interpreting historic space.

Museum Education G49.2224 Barsky. 4 points.
This seminar will provide an overview of the field of Museum Education. Museum Education will be considered in the context of the institution's relationship with constituent communities, with application to a broad range of audiences. Among the topics to be considered are teaching from objects, learning strategies, working with docents and volunteers, program planning, and the educational use of interactive technologies.

Museums and Interactive Technologies G49.2225 Gill. 4 points.
The course will present a survey and analysis of museum use of interactive technologies. Among the topics to be discussed in detail are strategies and tools for collections management, exhibitions, educational resources and programs, website design, digitization projects, and legal issues arising from the use of these technologies. Each student will develop an interactive project in an area of special interest.

Topics in Museum Studies: Museums and Contemporary Art G49.3330 Altshuler. 4 points.
This course investigates historical, theoretical, and practical aspects of the collecting and exhibiting of contemporary art in museums. Topics include curatorial strategies for exhibition and collection development, biennialism, the art market, conservation issues, artworks that take the museum as subject, public and relational art, and conflicts of interest that arise for museum staff and trustees. A familiarity with international contemporary art is required. Assignments include two short essays, class presentations, and a final paper.

Topics in Museum Studies: Collecting and Exhibiting Latin American Art in the United States, 1931-present G49.3330 Basilio. 4 points.
We will closely examine selected exhibitions held in United States museums that have shaped the definition of "Latin American art." Is the trans-national category "Latin American" art a product of survey exhibitions and museum collecting? If so, how does this affect the way artists' works and the history of art in individual countries are regarded? Why does "Latin American art" get "re-discovered" periodically, and what political and economic developments affect patronage and exhibitions? How has The Museum of Modern Art in particular played a pivotal role in defining Late American art since it began exhibiting and collecting in the 1930s?

Topics in Museum Studies: Heritage and Memory in History Museums G49.3330 Feldman, Williams. 4 points
This class will examine the controversial subject of museums that represent heritage, history and memory. Considering cases as diverse as Colonial Williamsburg, Mexican-American heritage museums, Slavery museums in Africa, Holocaust museums, and museums of Native American history, we will seek out common themes and problems that define museum representations of the past. Topics covered will include: authenticity, race, cultural property, cultural brokers, nationalism, interpretation, multivocality, photography, contact zones, context, multiculturalism and community outreach. Our objective will be to examine the connections and distinctions between the theory and practice of exhibiting history and to understand how material culture, social process and historical events converge in the social production of collections and institutions. Our focus will be on museums not merely as containers of history, but as social arenas that influence and determine the politics, value and experience of the past. Accordingly, students will be expected to develop a theoretical toolkit for contextualizing and addressing controversies in the heritage industry.

Topics in Museum Studies: Museums of Science, Nature and Industry G49.3330 Feldman. 4 points.
This course examines the history and practice of science museums from Aldrovandi's museum in Sixteenth-Century Bologna to Disney's EPCOT Center. Students will investigate the full range of museum types, including: museums of industrial history, medicine, aviation, space, natural history, and technology. The syllabus focuses on the key paradigms in the history of science museums, starting with the theater of nature, and then moving through the great industrial displays, progress exhibitions, corporate museums and science centers. Through readings, discussion and independent projects, students will consider the historical and political contexts germane to the various science museum paradigms, as well as arguments aboout class, race, gender and nation that they articulate. The goal of the course is to develop a dynamic, historically grounded conception of science exhibits that incorporates material culture, education and critical theory. Readings will include cultural history, mission statements and professional training literature.

Topics in Museum Studies: Anthropology in and of Museums G49.3330 Geismar. 4 points.
The course examines the history, structure and social life of anthropology museums, and the study of museums by anthropologists, focusing on a broad range of examples from the mid-Nineteenth Century to the present. It examines the relationships between anthropology and museums in two different ways. First, it traces the genealogy of anthropology in museums, looking at how museum principles of classification, practices of collection and exhibition, media, technology, and archiving have influenced the ways in which knowledge of human beings has been formed, presented, and represented. Second, the course looks at what taking a specifically anthropological or ethnographic perspective can do for our understanding of any kind of museum from art to zoology.
Topics include the place of anthropology in science museums; how museums embody and represent anthropological knwoledge; how important objects are to anthropology; how museums mediate the politics of cultural representation; the contemporary role of indigenous peoples in museums; and the intersection of anthropology and museum technologies, including photography and digitization projects. Class workshops are held at the American Museum of Natural History, the New York Annex of the Museum of American Indian, and the Metropolitan Museum, and we also have a number of guest speakers working either as anthropologists in museums or as anthropologists of museums.

Topics in Museum Studies: Cultural Property, Rights and Museums G49.3330 Geismar. 4 points.
What does it mean to own or have a culture? Are all cultures the same? Is owning your culture a basic human right? This course will investigate the growing discussions about cultural property rights that have emerged in the context of museum practices, from collection and display to conservation and archiving. A general analysis of concepts of culture, property, and rights related to these materials and social domains, will be offset by sessions that examine how different understanding of entitlements may be negotiated within museum spaces and how museum objects (broadly defined) may be understood as cultural resources. Special focus will be the impact of legislation; political events such as war; indigenous rights movements; international conceptions of intellectual and cultural property; and the commodity transaction and the marketplace, and on their impact on museum practice.

Topics in Museum Studies: Sacred on Display: Museums, Religion and Society G49.3330 Feldman. 4 points.
This course examines the relationship between religion and museums. Beginning with the premise that one culture's exhibit is another culture's sacred objects, we will explore the various ways that religious practice makes use of the museum, as well as the ways that museums have involved themselves with religion. Topics to be covered include: relics, sacred sites, ritual, clergy and syncretism. In addition, we will consider key moral and ethical questions that religion poses to museum practice in the modern world, and vice versa.
How have museums catalyzed innovations in religious practice? How have the needs of religion influenced or determined museum practice? With the goal of moving beyond a theoretical discussion, this class aims to generate a critical discussion useful to understanding the place of the museum in a contemporary global environment increasingly marked by religious innovation, expansion and conflict. Accordingly, while readings will draw from a wide variety of religious and museum practices, the syllabus will focus mainly on the world religious movements (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism) and the key issues they frame for museum studies.

Topics in Museum Studies: The Political Uses of Museums: Diplomacy, Tourism, Governmentality G49.3330 Williams. 4 points
In the last two decades, politics appears to have entered the museum as seldom before. This seems to reflect an increased awareness of key institutions' capacity to make authoritative public statements about contested values. Museums increasingly take a stand on divisive social issues, like cultural diversity and tolerance, art and obscenity, science and morality, and "difficult histories." Exhibitions and programs foregrounding such topics have an ambiguous relation to government, the tourist industry, and visitors. While they often paint a less than pretty or proud social portrait, they are often financially lucrative. Yet other museums remain steadfastly committed to more idealized visions of national progress, scientific and military prowess, and the artistic canon. The often stark distinction between these ideas about the role of the museum in the public sphere has raised critical questions: Are museums the most suitable places for political debate? What role do -- and should -- governments, interest groups, and corporate sponsors play in this realm? Are museums fighting for the "hearts and minds" of local visitors and international tourists, or merely telling stories?
The course will draw on a range of political factors that affect museums, including government cultural policy, diplomatic missions, funding bodies, tourism organizations, interest groups, international museum partnerships, and, of course, politicized visitors themselves. A range of case studies will be drawn on, that include traveling 9/11 exhibitions, Museums of Tolerance, live indigenous performances, revisionist war exhibitions, and art-in-society controversies.

Topics in Museum Studies: Exhibiting the “Latin Boom" in the USA G49.3330 (Spring 2003) Coffey. 4 points
This course examines exhibitions around, about, and for the diverse groups captured by the rubric “Latin" in its current usage in the US. By focusing on signal exhibitions from the last three decades, we will examine not only how these culture categories have been produced in museum exhibition, but also how they have changed as a result of critical pressures brought to bear by the groups they claim to represent. We will contextualize this “boom" with respect to the political economy of free-trade, globalization, and privatization, the cultural politics of nationalism, diaspora, and citizenship, and the distinct histories of populations designated by these broad labels. There will be special emphasis given to Mexico, Cuba, and Brazil as Latin American case-studies, and Chicano, Puerto Rican, and border cultures in our examination of Latino/as and museums.
The course will be structured like a collaborative working group, wherein students give presentations on exhibitions and collectively develop a critical dossier that compiles essays, bibliography, and reviews into a single final project. As a class we will determine the chronological limits of the project, the key moments in this history, and the analytical categories necessary for providing a critical historiography and context for this phenomenon. In addition to class presentations, students will be expected to write critical essays and to share their research with the class on a regular basis.

Topics in Museum Studies: Exhibitions and the Culture Wars G49.3330 (Spring 2002) Coffey. 4 points.
In this course we will situate several controversial exhibitions of the last twenty years within the context of the post-Cold War withdrawal of federal funding from not only the National Endowments, but also the University and advanced research, particularly in Science. Beginning with a survey of the Cold War investment in culture, consensus, and containment, we will focus on the constitution of an American culture of freedom and an international framework for disseminating the values of democracy and universal humanism through traveling exhibitions of photography, art, and commodity culture. Through an analysis of the rise and fall of the National Endowments, the growing strength of the political Right, and the ensuing attacks on “big government” and a host of “deviant” populations, we will trace the emergence of the “Culture Wars” in the 1980s. Weekly topics will include the debate over national curriculum standards for history, the dismantling of the welfare state, the Sokal hoax, and the turn toward biology and genetics in socio-political and popular discourse, especially in the late 90s. Exhibitions considered include, the Family of Man, the Perfect Moment, the Enola Gay, the West as America, the Black Male, Paradise Now, and the Genetic Revolution among others.

Topics in Museum Studies: Museum Ethnography, Photography, and the "Other" G49.3330 (Fall 2002) Kaplan. 4 points.
This seminar will consider the state of ethnographic research and representation in natural history and anthropology museums today. The focus will be on the role and uses of photography in research and interpretation. Both subjects will be placed in the 19th and 20th century Western historical contexts of the developing discipline and the visual medium that became its valued adjunct. The impact of these dual developments on public perceptions of the "Other" in museums is explored, including what is and is not shown. Visits to collections, galleries, and "art" exhibitions will take this exploration to museums and beyond. A photographic project and/or a paper will be required of students.

Exhibition Planning and Design G49.3332 Gallagher. 4 points.
This course will focus on the planning, development and design of exhibitions, permanent, temporary and traveling. It is a participatory class where students will learn basic exhibition design techniques, including spacial layouts and the use of graphics, audio-visual aids, lighting, colors, materials, and fabrication methods. Students will gain insight into exhibition planning and development and the roles played by various museum professionals. There will be visits to designers to discuss their work and to museums and other venues to analyze exhibition design techniques. Individual student projects will provide hands-on experience.

Research in Museum Studies G49.3915 1-4 points.
Independent research on a topic determined in consultation with the program director.

Cross-Listed Electives:
Museum Studies-related courses in other FAS departments and programs are regularly offered as cross-listed Museum Studies courses (e.g. G49. 1041, Tourist Productions, and G49.2320, Topics in Performing Culture: Museum Theater – taught by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett).

In addition, Museum Studies courses often are cross-listed in other departments of NYU (e.g. Topics in Museum Studies: Heritage and Memory in History Museums, G65.3330 – in the Draper Program, and in the History Department).

Page updated: 01 June 2007