Dear readers,
We want to thank those of you who
provided your syllabus or reading lists to share here. Below we have
compiled these resources. If you have a syllabus or course resources you'd
like to share with our community, please email mua4web@gmail.com and we
will post it at a later date. Although this our final post as editors of the
journal, we hope that the discussion will continue on matters of pedagogy and
teaching in our field.
_____________________
Course: Museums and Indigenous
Communities: Changing Relationships, Changing Practice [graduate course]
Dr. Cara Krmpotich
This course explores the changing
relationships between aboriginal source communities and museums holding their
material heritage. We begin with a historical overview of collecting practices,
the role of indigenous material culture in the development of museums, and the
relationship between museums and colonialism. Contemporary case studies
primarily drawn from post-colonial and settler contexts during the last three
decades are investigated as a response to earlier practices. Students are
challenged to use these case studies in order to interrogate ideas of the
museum as a ‘contact zone’, the shifting meaning of objects, contemporary
curatorial challenges, the potential of new museum practices, and source
community expectations. Actual exhibitions, repatriation requests and
museological dilemmas are used to engage critically with theoretical
developments in material culture studies, material anthropology, art history,
and indigenous studies.
Objectives:
- explore the historic and contemporary relationships between museums and indigenous communities.
- understand the influence of Canadian museum practice within the international dynamic of museums and indigenous communities.
- generate creative, thoughtful and practical suggestions and solutions for the exhibition, interpretation and care of aboriginal material heritage.
Course
Outline and Reading List
Week 1
Wednesday January 9: Definitions and Debates, Identities and Icons
Definitions
of the following used by the Canadian Government, UNESCO, museum associations,
and Indigenous organizations: Source communities; originating communities;
descendent communities; Indigenous; Status and Recognition; Cultural
property, heritage; intangible cultural property
Ruth
Phillips. 2011. ‘A Preface – by Way of an Introduction’ in Museum Pieces:
Toward
the Indigenization of Canadian
Museums, McGill-Queen’s
University Press. pp 3-22. [Available PDF in Blackboard]
Week 2
Wednesday January 16: Collecting Histories
Guest Amber
Sandy, Native Canadian Centre of Toronto, to Introduce the Toronto Native
Community History Project and First Story App
Cole, Douglas.
1995 [1985]. Captured Heritage: The Scramble for Northwest Coast Artifacts.
Vancouver: UBC Press. E-book: http://books1.scholarsportal.info/viewdoc.html?id=/ebooks/ebooks0/gibson_crkn/2009-12-01/2/404116]
Gardner,
Helen. 2004. ‘Gathering for God: George Brown and the Christian Economy in
the Collection of Artefacts.’ In Hunting
the Gatherers: Ethnographic Collectors, Agents and Agency in Melanesia,
1870s-1930s. Oxford: Berghahn. Pp. 35-54. [Available PDF in Blackboard]
Hamilton,
Michelle. 2010. Collections and Objections: Aboriginal Material Culture in
Southern Ontario. Montreal, Kingston: McGill-Queen’s Press. **Chapter 2, For the
General Good of Science: Historical and Scientific Society Museums [PDF in
Blackboard]
Phillips,
Ruth. 1998. Trading Identities: the souvenir in Native American art from the
Northeast, 1700-1900. Hong Kong: University of Washington Press.
**Chapters 1 & 2. [Available PDF in Blackboard]
Week 3
Wednesday January 23: Colonial and National Identities in the Museum
- Empire vs Natural History
- Progress vs Static
- Art vs Artifact
Archuleta,
Elizabeth. 2005. “Gym Shoes, Maps, and Passports, Oh My!” In American Indian
Quarterly 29 (3/4): 426-449. [Available PDF in Blackboard]
Clifford,
James. “Museums as Contact Zones,” in his book Routes: Travel and
Transformation in the Late Twentieth Century, Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press (1997), pp. 107-45. [Available PDF in Blackboard]
Doxtator,
Deborah. 1996. ‘The Implications of Canadian Nationalism for Aboriginal
Cultural Autonomy’ In Curatorship: indigenous perspectives in post-colonial
societies, pp 56-76. Ottawa: Canadian Museum of Civilization.
[Available PDF in Blackboard]
Henare,
Amiria. 2004. “Rewriting the Script: Te Papa Tongarewa the Museum of New
Zealand.” In Social Analysis 48(1): 55-63. [Available PDF in Blackboard]
Phillips, Ruth B 2005. ‘Re-placing
Objects: Historical Practices for the Second Museum
Age.’ In The Canadian Historical Review 86(1): 83-110.
(e-article) http://www.metapress.com/content/yxm434367714672k/fulltext.pdf
Week 4
Wednesday January 30: Why Objects Matter: identity, memory, healing
Guest
Speaker: Dr Maureen Matthews, Curator, Ethnology, Manitoba Museum
- Kinship and Ancestry
- Reconciliation
- Physical engagement, embodied memory
- Nostalgia
Askren,
Mique’l Icesis. 2009. ‘Memories of Glass and Fire’. In Visual Currencies:
Reflections on Native Photography H Lidchi
and H Tsinhnahjinnie (Eds), pp
91-107. Edinburgh: National Museums
Scotland. [Available PDF in Blackboard]
McRanor,
Shauna. 1997. ‘Maintaining the Reliability of Aboriginal Oral Records and
their Material Manifestations: Implications for Archival Practice.’ In Archivaria
43: 64-88. [e-article] http://journals.sfu.ca/archivar/index.php/archivaria/
article/view/12176
Tapsell,
Paul. 2011. ‘”Aroha mai: Whose museum?”: The rise of indigenous ethics within
museum contexts: A Maori-tribal perspective.’ In The Routledge Companion to
Museum Ethics J Marstine (ed), London and New York: Routledge. Pp. 85-111.
[Available PDF in Blackboard]
Te
Awekotuku, Ngahuia. 2008. ‘Mata Oro: Chiseling the Living Face, Dimensions of
Maori Tattoo.’ In Sensible Objects: Colonialism, Museums and Material
Culture,
E Edwards, C
Gosden and R Phillips (eds), pp 121-140. Oxford: Berg. **and
skim the rest of the book. [Available PDF in Blackboard]
Thornton,
Russell. 2002. ‘Repatriation as healing the wounds of the trauma of
history: cases of Native Americans in the United
States of America.’ In The
Dead and Their Possessions: repatriation in principle,
policy and practice
(eds.) C.
Fforde, J. Hubert and P. Turnbull, pp. 17-24. New York, London: Routledge.
[e-book http://lib.myilibrary.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/Open.aspx?id=5099&loc=&srch=undefined&src=0
]
Week 5
Wednesday February 6 Why Objects Matter: history, economy, politics
Exhibition
Review due in Class
- Cultural property
- Historical documentation
- Trade histories, Tourist Art, the Art Market
In class
film: Inuit Piqutingit (That Which Belongs To Inuit)
Brown,
Michael C. 1998. ‘Can Culture Be Copyrighted?’ in Current Anthropology
39(2):
193-223. [Available as PDF in
Blackboard and e-journal] http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/204721
Ettawageshick,
Frank. 1999. My Father's Business. In Unpacking Culture: Art and
Commodity in Colonial and Postcolonial Worlds, R Phillips
and C Steiner,
(eds), pp 20-29. Berkeley: University of California Press.
[Available PDF in
Blackboard]
Glass,
Aaron. 2011. ‘Objects of Exchange: Material Culture, Colonial Encounter and
Indigenous Modernity.’ In Objects of Exchange: Social and Material
Transformation on the Late
Nineteenth-Century Northwest Coast, A Glass (ed), pp 3-35. New York, New Haven: Bard,
Yale University Press. [PDF in Blackboard]
Penny, David
W. 2007. ‘Captain’s Coats’ In Three Centuries of Woodlands Indian
Art, J King and
C Feest (eds), pp. 85-91. Altenstadt, Germany: FZK Publishers.
[Available PDF in Blackboard]
Skotnes, Pippa. 2001. ‘”Civilised
Off the Face of the Earth”: Museum Display and the
Silencing of the /Xam’ In Poetics
Today 22(2): 299-321. [Available as PDF in
Blackboard]
Week 6
Wednesday February 13: Challenges to Museums
Ames,
Michael M. ‘How to decorate a house: the renegotiation of cultural
representations at the University of British Columbia Museum of
Anthropology’ in Museums and Source Communities, L Peers and A
Brown
(eds), pp 171-180. London:
Routledge. [e-book http://simplelink.library.utoronto.ca/url.cfm/89433
Hanna,
Margaret. 1999. ‘A time to choose: ‘Us’ versus ‘Them,’ or ‘all of us together.’
Plains Anthropologist
44(170):43-52.
[e-article] http://proquest.umi.com/pqdlink?did=47257934&sid=1&Fmt=4&clientId=12520&RQT=309&VName=PQD
Nason, James.
2000. ‘Our’ Indians: the unidimensional Indian in the disembodied
local past. In The Changing Presentation of the American Indian:
Museums
and Native cultures. Washington, DC: Smithsonian
Institution. See also essay
by David Penney in this volume.
[Available PDF in Blackboard]
Task Force
on Museums and First Peoples. 1992 (2nd edition). Turning the
Page:
forging new partnerships between museums and First
Peoples, Ottawa:
Assembly of First Nations and the Canadian Museums Association.
The Spirit
Sings
Exhibition-related readings:
Julia
Harrison, Bruce Trigger and Michael Ames, “Museums and Politics: The Spirit
Sings and the Lubicon Boycott,” Muse, Fall 1988, pp. 12-16, 22,
24.
Alfred Young
Man, “Review,” American Indian Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 1 (Winter, 1990),
pp. 71-73. [e-article] http://www.jstor.org/stable/1185021
M.L. Vanessa
Vogel, “The Glenbow Controversy and the Exhibition of North American Art,” Museum
Anthropology, Vol.14, no.4, 7-11. [e-article] http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/mua.1990.14.4.7
Julia
Harrison, “The Spirit Sings: The Last Song?,” International Journal of
Museum Management and Curatorship, 1988, 7(4): 353-363. [e-article]
http://resolver.scholarsportal.info/resolve/02604779/v07i0004/353_tss
Thomas H.
Wilson, Georges Erasmus, and David W. Penney, “Museums and First Peoples in
Canada,” Museum Anthropology, 1992, 16.2, 6-11. [e-article] http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/mua.1992.16.2.6
Week 7
Wednesday February 20: READING BREAK. NO CLASS.
Week 8
Wednesday February 27: Histories of Repatriation
- Artifacts and Human Remains
- Treaties, Laws and Moral Agreements
- Emotions behind Politics
Dumont,
Clayton W. Jr. 2003. The Politics of Scientific Objections to Repatriation.
Wicazo Sa
Review 18(1):
109-128. [e-article] http://resolver.scholarsportal.info/resolve/15337901/v18i0001/109_tposotr
Fforde,
Cressida, Jane Hubert and Paul Turnbull, (eds.) 2002. The Dead and Their
Possessions: repatriation in principle, policy and
practice. New York,
London:
Routledge. ** especially Isaac and
Ayau and Tengan. [e-book] http://simplelink.library.utoronto.ca/url.cfm/29283
Mihesuah,
Devon A. (ed.) 2000. Repatriation Reader: Who Owns American Indian
Remains? Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Runde, Aileen.
2010. ‘The Return of Wampum Belts: Ethical Issues and the Repatriation
of Native American Archival Materials.’ In Journal of Information
Ethics 19(1): 33-
44. [Available PDF in Blackboard]
Yellowman,
Connie Hart. 1996. ‘Naevahoo’ohtseme’ – We Are Going Back Home:
The Cheyenne Repatriation of Human Remains—A Woman’s
Perspective.
St. Thomas
Law Review 9: 103-116. [e-article] http://www.heinonline.org/
HOL/Page?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/stlr9&id=111
Week 9
Wednesday March 6: Contemporary Faces of Repatriation
Guest
Speaker: Janis Montrose, Executive Director, Woodland Cultural Centre
- Visual, Virtual, Knowledge and Figurative Repatriation
Bell, Joshua
A. ‘Looking to see: reflections on visual repatriation in the Purari Delta,
Gulf Province, Papua New Guinea’ in Museums and Source Communities,
L
Peers and A Brown (eds), London:
Routledge. Pg 111-121. [e-book] http://simplelink.library.utoronto.ca/url.cfm/89433
Crouch,
Michelle. 2010. ‘Digitization as Repatriation? The National Museum of the
American Indian’s Fourth Museum Project’. In Journal of Information
Ethics
19(1): 45-56.
gii-dahl-guud-sliiaay.
1995. Cultural Perpetuation: Repatriation of First Nations
Cultural Heritage. Material Culture In Flux: Law
and Policy of Repatriation of
Cultural Property (theme issue), University of
British Columbia Law Review:
183-202. [e-article] http://www.heinonline.org/HOL/
Page?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/ubclr1995&id=9
Kramer,
Jennifer. 2004. Figurative Repatriation: First Nations ‘Artist-Warriors’
Recover, Reclaim, and Return
Cultural Property through Self-Definition. Journal of Material Culture
9(2):161-182. [e-article] http://resolver.scholarsportal.info/resolve/13591835/v09i0002/161_fr
Krmpotich,
Cara. 2010. Remembering and Repatriation: The Production of Kinship,
Memory and Respect. Journal of Material
Culture 15(2): 157-179. [e-article] http://resolver.scholarsportal.info/resolve/13591835/v15i0002/157_rar
Week 10
Wednesday March 13: Changing Practice
- Exhibitions Collaboration and Curation
Conaty,
Gerry. ‘Glenbow’s Blackfoot Gallery: working towards co-existence’, in
Museums and Source Communities, L Peers and A Brown (eds), London:
Routledge. Pg 227-240. [e-book] http://simplelink.library.utoronto.ca/url.cfm/89433
Kahn,
Miriam. 2000. Not really Pacific Voices: Politics of representation in
collaborative museum exhibits. Museum Anthropology 24(1): 57-74.
[e-article] http://dx.doi.org/10.1525/mua.2000.24.1.57
Kreps,
Christina. 2009. Indigenous curation, museums, and intangible cultural
heritage. In Intangible Heritage, L Smith and N Akagawa (eds), pp
193-208..
London and New York:
Routledge. [Available PDF in Blackboard]
McMaster,
Gerald (ed). 1998. Reservation X: the power of place in aboriginal art.
Ottawa: Canadian Museum of Civilization. [e-book]
Nicks, Trudy
‘Introduction: Museums and contact work’ in Museums and Source
Communities, L Peers
and A Brown (eds), London: Routledge. Pg 19-26. [e-book] http://simplelink.library.utoronto.ca/url.cfm/89433
Week 11
Wednesday March 20: Changing Practice
- Equality in Research
- Collections Management, Conservation and Handling
In class
film: ‘Everything Was Carved’
Clavir,
Miriam. 2002. Preserving What is Valued. Vancouver: UBC Press.
[e-book] http://simplelink.library.utoronto.ca/url.cfm/59005
Fienup-Riordan,
Ann. 1998. Yup’ik Elders in Museums: Fieldwork Turned on its Head. Arctic
Anthropology 35(2): 49-58. [e-article] http://www.jstor.org/stable/40316487
Sullivan, Lawrence and Alison Edwards (eds). 2004. Stewards
of the Sacred.
Washington, D.C.: American Association of Museums, **especially Section
Three, and the essay ‘Managing the Sacred: Collection Development at the Woodland
Cultural Centre’ by Tom Hill.
Thompson, Judy, and Ingrid Diana Kritsch. 2005. Long ago
sewing we will remember: the story of the Gwich'in traditional caribou skin
clothing project. Québec: Canadian Museum of Civilization.
Underhill, Karen J. 2006. Protocols for Native American
Archival Material In RBM: A
Journal of Rare Books, Manuscripts, and Cultural Heritage 7(2): 134-145.
**And for a look at the Protocols discussed by Underhill,
see First Archivists Circle. 2007. Protocols for Native American Archival
Materials: http://www2.nau.edu/libnap-p/protocols.html
Week 12
Wednesday March 27: Changing Technology
- On-line catalogues and exhibitions
- Meanings of Virtual Objects
- Technology of Enchantment, Enchantment of Technology
Research
Projects Due in Class
Brown,
Deirdre. 2007. ‘Te Ahu Hiko: digital cultural heritage and indigenous objects,
people and environments.’ In Theorizing digital cultural heritage: a
critical
discourse, F Cameron and S Kenderdine (eds), pp 77-92.
Cambridge Mass:
MIT Press. [Available PDF in
Blackboard]
Christen,
Kim. 2012. ‘Does Information Really Want to be Free? Inidigenous Knowledge
Systems and the Question of Openness.’ In International Journal of
Communication 6: 2870-2893. [PDF in Blackboard]
Geismar,
Haidy and William Mohns. 2011. ‘Social relationships and digital relationships:
rethinking the database at the Vanuatu Cultural Centre.’ In Journal
of the Royal
Anthropological Institute (N.S.), S133-S155.
[Available as PDF in Blackboard]
Isaac,
Gwyneira. 2009. "Digital Enchantments: Identifying with Electronic Media
at
the National Museum of the American Indian" in Visual
Currencies:
Reflections on Native Photography, H. Lidchi
& H Tsinhnahjinnie, (eds.), 77-
89. Edinburgh: National Museums Scotland. [Available PDF in
Blackboard]
Library and
Archives Canada. Aboriginal Resources and Services Portal.
Monash University Information
Technology. Koorie Archiving: Trust and Technology
Final Report :
http://www.infotech.monash.edu.au/research/centres/cosi/
projects/trust/final-report/index.html
Week 13
Wednesday April 3: Indigenous Museums and Heritage Centres
- Separation vs Integration
Presentation
of Research Projects for Colleagues
Campisi,
Jack. 2007. ‘On Building the Mashantucket Pequot Museum and Research
Centre’ In Three Centuries of Woodlands Indian Art (Eds) J King and C
Feest,
pp. 161-169. Altenstadt, Germany:
FZK Publishers. [Available PDF in Blackboard]
Clifford,
James. 1991. Four Northwest Coast Museums: Travel Reflections.
Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of
Museum Display (eds.) I. Karp
and S. Levine, 212-254. Washington and London:
Smithsonian Institution
Press. [Available PDF in
blackboard]
Erikson,
Patricia Pierce. 2004. ‘Defining Ourselves Through Baskets’: Museum
Autoethnography and the Makah Cultural and Research Centre in Coming to
Shore: Northwest Coast Ethnology, Visions and Traditions (eds) M
Mauze, M
Harkin and S Kan, pp 339-361. Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska
Press. [Available PDF in
Blackboard]
Hill,
Richard W. 2003. ‘Meeting Ground: The Reinstallation of the Art Gallery of
Ontario’s McLaughlin Gallery’ In Making a Noise! Aboriginal Perspectives on
Art, Art History, Critical Writing and Community (ed) L Martin, pp 51-70. Banff:
Banff International Curatorial
Institute. [Available PDF in Blackboard]
Assignments
Presentation: During the
first class, students will choose one week to present a synthesis of the week’s
readings to the class. This is not a summary of the content, but rather a
presentation and analysis of recurring themes. The presentations will start
each class and should be 20 to 25 minutes. Students will work in groups of
three for their presentations. If numbers require it, some weeks may have four
students. Groups will be determined in the first week of class.
Exhibition
Review: Students
shall visit a Toronto-based museum or gallery exhibition that includes
indigenous material culture. Students will prepare a review of the exhibit,
drawing upon the examples and theory encountered in the course, to
constructively critique the exhibition and provide alternatives or solutions to
any problems identified. Reviews should be no longer than 5 double-spaced
pages.
Research Projects: Each student will participate in one group-project.
Groups will be determined in the second week of class.
First Story
App Research: 3 to 4 students
In support
of the Toronto Native Community History Project’s development of the First
Story App, students will conduct research regarding aboriginal histories relevant
to specific areas within the GTA. Students will present a portfolio of research
findings for use within TNCHP, as well as app-suitable write-ups to facilitate
inclusion of the research into the app. Research will focus on the following
locations:
1. Rouge
River Valley - Ganatsekwyagon, Seneca Village close to Lakeshore,
south of
Rouge Park
2. Scarborough Bluffs
3. Lake Ontario - The name, waterways, transportation used etc.
4. Indian road - A path used by First Nations
5. Dundas Street - created by Simcoe with the help of the Haudenesaunee, was the first road that Europeans built
6. Laurence Hall and City Hall - Toronto coat of Arms, original one still on Laurence hall, see how it has changed over the years and its images of Native people, now represented by an eagle
7. Baby Point
2. Scarborough Bluffs
3. Lake Ontario - The name, waterways, transportation used etc.
4. Indian road - A path used by First Nations
5. Dundas Street - created by Simcoe with the help of the Haudenesaunee, was the first road that Europeans built
6. Laurence Hall and City Hall - Toronto coat of Arms, original one still on Laurence hall, see how it has changed over the years and its images of Native people, now represented by an eagle
7. Baby Point
Please note
that a pre-existing intellectual property rights agreement pertains to this
project, such that all research results and text become the property of the
Native Canadian Centre of Toronto.
This project
targets a range of skills, including: Historical research of primary
sources including archives, architecture, oral histories, and potentially U of
T Elders-in-residence; Historical research using secondary
sources; Presentation of research results; Writing for the
Web; Enhanced knowledge of app development; Project Management
Revisiting
the Task Force Report: Groups of 3 to 5 students:
It has been
twenty years since the Canadian Museums Association and Assembly of First
Nations released the results of their national survey assessing the
relationships between museums and indigenous communities in Canada. Very little
exists that seeks to measure the influence of the Task Force Report: a student
presentation at a conference; an early and brief article by Trudy Nicks, and an
unpublished transcription of an MMSt-led special panel revisiting the Task
Force from 2010.
Your task is
to design tools to assess the extent to which the recommendations and
priorities of the Task Force Report have been fulfilled, and also to design
tools to establish current priorities for indigenous and museum relations.
Groups are
expected to prepare the evaluation tools and handbook/manual to guide the
collection of data with the ultimate goal being a product of sufficient quality
for submission to the CMA and AFN. Groups should also prepare a report that
discusses their choices for their research design.
This project
targets a range of skills, including: Development of evaluation
strategies; Research design; Research of primary and secondary
sources, including original Task Force Report materials and unpublished
transcripts of panel discussion featuring Trudy Nicks (ROM), Gerald McMaster
(AGO) and Andrea LaForet (CMC); Practices/Handbook and Report
writing; Project Management; Potentially consultation with national
bodies such as CMA and AFN.
First
Nations, Inuit and Metis in the new Canadian Museum of History: Groups of 3 to
5 students:
The Canadian
Museum of Civilization is embarking on a new vision for itself as the Canadian
Museum of History. President and CEO, Mark O’Neil, has stated that while the
First Peoples Hall will remain, the intention is to integrate indigenous
content into the re-vamped Canada Hall.
Consider
what indigenous objects, events, and/or people should be included in the new
Hall. Present curatorial or theoretical frameworks for your choices, as well as
potential interpretive strategies that support your intentions. Since no
curatorial or interpretive approach has been set for the new Hall, you are able
to set the broader context: consider how your curatorial & interpretive
strategies might play out across the Hall as a whole.
Groups
should present a written explanation for their curatorial and interpretive
choices, as well as sample text labels demonstrating historical research,
installation sketches, images of objects, documents or photographs to be used.
This project
targets a range of skills, including:Engagement with crowd-sourcing, via the
CMH’s website; Interpretive planning;Curatorial research; Exhibition
planning; A variety of writing modes such as
report-writing, text labels, and/or exhibition briefs.
Students
interested in this option should consider having a group member visit and
document the First Peoples Hall, existing Canada Hall, and talk about the new
museum vision by Jean-Marc Blais.
Repatriation
for the Future: Groups of 3 to 5 students:
NAGPRA is
now more than twenty years old, while Canada’s policy-based approach to
repatriation is just twenty-years old. NAGPRA is being reviewed this year for
clarity of language, but some wonder whether more than just the language
requires clarification.
This project
asks students to compare and contrast repatriation case studies from the US,
Canada, and the UK: more specifically, students will compare the repatriation
of indigenous material heritage and human remains to source communities, with
the repatriation of material heritage and private property confiscated by the
Nazi Party, and subsequently returned to individuals, families and heirs
through the Spoliation process (UK) and the Nazi Era Provenance Portal (a
non-legislative approach by American museums).
Consider the
parameters that make these approaches successful or unsuccessful; what can
countries learn from each other’s modes for repatriation? Consider whether
these models work for digital material heritage, intellectual property, or
other “objects” and “property” that were not as prescient in the late 1980s and
early 1990s. In other words, explore the current and future challenges for
repatriation work.
Students
should present their findings in an article format, with the ultimate goal
being submission of the paper to a peer-reviewed journal.
This project
targets a range of skills, including: Research
of secondary, and potentially primary, resources; Comparative analysis; Development
of area expertise; Academic writing and scholarly communication; Article
preparation.
_____________________
Course: Museum Anthropology
[undergraduate/graduate course]
Dr. Cory Willmott
This course situates anthropology museums among the various
types of museums, examines the roles of museums in the history of anthropology,
and explores contemporary issues in North American museum anthropology in the
three fields of anthropology that are currently involved with museums
(archaeology, biological and cultural). Due to current trends in the field,
there will be a strong emphasis on relations between museum anthropologists and
Native Americans; however, some attention will also be given to international
issues.
Course Objectives
1)
To impart upper level knowledge of anthropological approaches to the collection
and display of physical, archaeological and ethnological heritage items.
2)
To develop skills in reading comprehension, critical thinking, library
research, and written communication in/about anthropological research.
3)
To develop an understanding of the ethical issues involved in the collection,
study and display of physical, archaeological and ethnological heritage items.
Required Texts
IMW - Introduction
to Museum Work (G. Ellis Burcaw, 1997)
EC - Exhibiting
Cultures (Ivan Karp and Steven D. Levine, eds., 1991)
Course Outline
PART ONE: INTRODUCTION
Introduction Lecture: What is Museum
Anthropology?
Exercise:
Survey
Reading:
IMW pp.13-22; 37-55
Collecting Theory
Lecture:
Collecting Art, History and Science
Exercise:
The Art/Culture System
Reading:
IMW pp. 56-72
Anthropology Museums
Lecture:
Collecting in the Four Fields of Anthropology
Reading:
MM Ch. 3
History of Ethnographic Collecting
Exercise:
Reading Worksheet
Reading:
BB Willmott (Museum Praxis)
History of Ethnographic Exhibitions
Lecture:
Evolution of World’s Fairs
Video:
Ishi
Reading:
EC Ch. 18, Hinsley
Willmott,
Cory. 2006. “The Historical Praxis of Museum Anthropology: A Canada/US
Comparison.” In Historicizing Canadian Anthropology. J. Harrison and R.
Darnell, eds. Pp. 212- 225. Vancouver, BC: UBC Press.
PART TWO: REPATRIATION
Introduction to NAGPRA; Human
Remains
Exercise:
Term Test 1
Video:
Bones of Contention (49 min.)
Reading:
Chapters from: Miheshuah, Devon, ed. 2000. Repatriation Reader: Who Owns
American Indian Remains? Lincoln, NB: University of Nebraska Press.
Trope
and Echo-Hawk, on NAGPRA and NAGPRA act in appendix.
The NAGPRA Debate
Exercise:
NAGPRA scenarios
Reading:
Landau and Steele, on archaeologists’ perspectives
Case Studies: Repatriation
Lecture:
Virtual Repatriation: RRN and GRASAC
Video:
Box of Treasures
Reading:
Jacknis, on a case study of Native American perspectives
Alexander,
Edward, and Mary Alexander. 2008. “Natural History and Anthropology Museums.”
In Museums in Motion: An Introduction to the History and Functions of
Museums,Second Edition. Pp.53-84. New York: Alta Mira Press.
Ethics in Art & Archaeology
Video:
Stealing History (52 min.)
Ethics in Ethnology
Video:
Smithsonian National Museum for the American Indian (28 min.)
Reading:
Wastiau, Boris. 2008. African Art at the Museum of Ethnography in Geneva (MEG).
African Arts 41(1):1-7.
PART THREE REPRESENTATION
Construction of Meaning and Value 1
Exercise:
Term Test 2; Three Sites of Meaning”
Reading:
Willmott, Cory. 2008. Visitors’ Voices: Lessons from Conversations in the Royal
Ontario Museum’s Gallery of Canada: First Peoples. Material Culture Review 67:45-55.
Construction of Meaning and Value 2
Exercise:
“The Fragment”
Reading:
EC Ch.20 pp.386-416 Kirshenblatt- Gimblett
Hierarchy of Senses in Museums
Lecture:
Anishnaabe Metal Arts
Exercise:
Musical Instruments
Reading:
EC Ch.22 Hudson
Emic vs. Etic Representations
Video:
Shooting Indians
Reading: C
Ch.14 Clifford
Intangible Heritage
Lecture:
Folk Festivals and Dances/National Identities
Reading:
EC Ch. 17 Kurin
_____________________
Course: History, identity, memory,
and ‘things’ [graduate seminar]
Dr. Laura Peers
This graduate seminar was designed to help me think through
current research interests on historic objects and social healing for
indigenous people. It reflects my own intellectual history and that of the Pitt
Rivers Museum. The syllabus was used in winter 2013 and reflects the opening of
an exhibition at the Pitt Rivers Museum about the Blackfoot Shirts Project at
the end of the term, with a visiting Blackfoot delegation.
This seminar considers issues
surrounding relationships between material objects and indigenous histories,
and the use of museum objects to strengthen indigenous identities today. The
focus is on North American indigenous groups with additional material from
Australia and New Zealand.
Structure: Teaching will be through 8 seminars of 2 hours each.
Students will be expected to participate actively in all discussions and to do
all the readings for each week. In addition to the core seminars, there will be
visits to artefacts in the Pitt Rivers Museum both in and out of case.
Each student will be responsible for
synthesizing the main emphases of the readings for one week and giving a
presentation of no more than 20 minutes to the group. You should assume that
everyone has done the readings, so this is not a summary of each reading;
rather, you should give an overview of the issues within the topic and their
implications for other topics covered across the classes. On the day you do
your presentation, you should submit a paper of ca.10 double-spaced pages on
the subject. There will be a final examination for this seminar in Trinity
term.
Week 1: Class organization and
definitions
Series organization. Preliminary
discussion: what is a museum, what is an artefact, what is a source community,
what is an ‘indigenous person’: stereotypes and complexities. Contexts of
indigenous histories and their contemporary intersection with museum
collections.
**Visit with historic artifact, Pitt
Rivers Museum, conservation studio.
-definitions of indigeneity (real,
political, and provocative…): explore these and any other definitions you can
find before class, and be prepared to discuss how such definitions evolve and
what their purposes are:
-for Canada, see: http://www.ainc-inac.gc.ca/ap/index-eng.asp
(this is the Indian Affairs site, which also gives details of legal relations
between status/non-status/Metis/Inuit groups and the federal government)
-for NZ, see: ‘Maori descent, in
Statistics New Zealand website, at: http://stats.co.nz/surveys_and_methods/methods/classifications-and-standards/classification-related-stats-standards/maori-descent/definition.aspx
-for Australia, see: http://www.aph.gov.au/library/pubs/rn/2000-01/01rn18.htm
-case studies: Indigenous cultures,
identities, histories, memories, sensory engagements and ‘objects’:
-** watch before class: ‘Everything
was carved,’ video on Haida visit to PRM [http://www.prm.ox.ac.uk/haida.html ]
and
-‘Visit to Glenbow with the Kainai
Studies Students to see the visiting War Shirts from the Pitt Rivers Museum of
Oxford, England’ (this is a video taken by Adrienne Heavy Head of the Blackfoot
Digital Library during a class visit as part of the Blackfoot Shirts Project;
it shows ceremonialist Alan Pard lecturing to students and various interactions
with the shirts: just dip into it) http://blackfootdigitallibrary.com/en/asset/visit-glenbow-kainai-studies-students-see-visiting-war-shirts-pitt-rivers-museum-oxford%2C-engla
Week 2: Sensory engagements with
objects: How do sensory engagements with objects stimulate or provoke
responses? What kinds of responses are observed, and what kinds of knowledge
are they linked to?
Edwards, E., C. Gosden and R.
Phillips (eds.) 2006. Sensible Objects: Colonialism, Museums and Material
Culture. Oxford: Berg. *Introduction and essays by Te Akwekotukutu (‘Mata
Ora: Chiselling the Living Face) and Classen and Howes (‘The museum as
sensescape: western sensibilities and indigenous artefacts’)
EITHER: Arigho, B. 2008. ‘Getting a
Handle on the Past: the Use of Objects in Reminiscence Work.’ Pp. 205-212 in Touch
in Museums: Policy and Practice in Object Handling, ed. H. Chatterjee.
Oxford: Berg.
OR
Chaterjee, H, et. al. 2009.
‘Museopathy: Exploring the Healing Potential of Handling Museum Objects.’ Museum
and Society 7:164-177.
Seremetakis, N. 1996. The senses
still: perception and memory as material culture in modernity. Chicago: U
of Chicago Press. *read pp.1-18.
Dudley, S. 2009. ‘Museum
Materialities: Objects, Sense and Feeling.’ Pp.1-17 in Museum Materialities:
Objects, Engagements, and Interpretations, ed. S. Dudley. London:
Routledge.
Edwards, E. 2010. ‘Photographs and
History: Emotion and Materiality.’ Pp.21-38 in Museum Materialities:
Objects, Engagements, and Interpretations, ed. S. Dudley. London:
Routledge.
Fienup-Riordan, A. 2005. Things
of our Ancestors. U Washington Press. (read the Introduction, chapter
‘First Day’ and chapter ‘Fifteenth Day’)
Supplementary reading --not
necessary for the class, but pursue if you wish:
Classen, Constance. 2005. The Book of Touch. Oxford: Berg.
Chatterjee,
Helen, ed. 2008. Touch in Museum: policy and practice in object handling.
Oxford: Berg.
Howes, D. ed., 2004. Empire of
the Senses. Berg.
Harkin, M. 2003. ‘Feeling and
Thinking in Memory and Forgetting: Towards an Ethnohistory of the Emotions.’ Ethnohistory
50(2):261-284.
Pink, Sarah. 2010. ‘The future of
sensory anthropology/the anthropology of the senses.’ Social Anthropology
18(3): 331-333.
Pye, Elizabeth, ed. 2007. The
Power of touch: handling objects in museum and heritage contexts.
Left Coast Press.
Saunderson, Helen. 2011. ‘ ‘Do Not
Touch’: A Discussion on the Problems of a Limited Sensory Experience with
Objects in a Gallery or Museum Context. Pp.159-170 in The Thing about
Museums: Objects and Experience, Representation and Contestation, eds. S.
Dudley et al. London: Routledge.
Week 3: Indigenous identities and
museum objects: How is identity constructed/reconstructed in Indigenous
communities? How do museum objects contribute to these processes?
Farrell Racette, S. 2009. Looking
for stories and unbroken threads: museum artifacts as women’s history and
cultural legacy. In Valaskaskis and Stout, eds, Restoring the balance: First
Nations women, community and culture (Winnipeg: University of Manitoba
Press).
Clifford, J. 2004. ‘Looking Several
Ways: Anthropology and Native Heritage in Alaska.’ Current Anthropology
45 (1):5-30.
Lyons, C. 2002. ‘Objects and
Identities: Claiming and Reclaiming the Past.’ In Barkan and Bush, eds, Claiming
the stones/Naming the Bones: Cultural Property and the Negotiation of National
and Ethnic Identity (Getty Research Institute).
Parkin, D. 1999. ‘Mementos as
Transitional Objects in Human Displacement.’
Journal of Material Culture 4(3):303-320.
Tapsell, P.1997, 'The flight of
Pareraututu, ' Journal of the Polynesian Society, 106.4: 323–74.
Week 4: Indigenous histories and
museum objects: How do Indigenous histories and culturally-mediated narrations
of the past combine to make museum objects valuable to Indigenous communities
today?
Krmpotich, C. 2010. ‘Remembering and
Repatriation: The Production of Kinship, Memory and Respect.’ Journal of
Material Culture 15: 157-179.
Edwards, E. 2006. ‘Photographs and
the Sound of History.’ Visual Anthropology Review 21 (1,2): 27-46.
Friedman, J. 1992. ‘The Past in the
Future: History and the Politics of Identity.’ American Anthropologist
94(4): 837–859.
Phillips, R. 2005.
‘Re-placing Objects: Historical Practices for the Second Museum Age.’ Canadian
Historical Review 86 (1):83-110.
Binney, J. and G. Chaplin. 2003.
‘Taking the photographs home: the recovery of a Maori history.’ In Peers and
Brown, eds., Museums and Source Communities (Routledge).
Hafner, D. 2010. ‘Viewing the Past
through Ethnographic Collections: Indigenous People and the Materiality of
Objects and Images.’ Museum History Journal 3:257-280.
Week 5: Memory and objects
How is memory socially constructed,
and how is it socially maintained (or altered)? How do museum objects function
within collective memory?
Cruikshank, J. 2002. ‘Oral
History, Narrative strategies, and Native American historiography.’ In: Shoemaker,
Nancy, ed. 2002. Clearing a Path: theorizing the past in Native American
studies. London/NY: Routledge.
Hallam, E and J Hockey. Death,
Memory and Material Culture. (Berg) (read introduction and to p.43).
Nora, P. 1989. ‘Between Memory and
History: Les Lieux de Mémoires.’
Representations No. 26 Special Issue: Memory and Counter-Memory: 7-24.
Seremetakis, N. 1994. The Senses
Still: Perception and Memory as Material Culture in Modernity (University
of Chicago Press). (read pp.1-18).
Climo, J. and M. Cattell (eds) 2002.
Social Memory and History: Anthropological Perspectives. Oxford:
Altamira *Robert Archibald essay and intro
Golden, C. 2005. ‘Where does memory
reside, and why isn’t it history?’ American Anthropologist 107
(2):270-274.
Miller, D., and F. Parrott. 2009.
‘Loss and Material Culture in South London.’ Journal of the Royal
Anthropological Institute 15: 502-519.
Week 6 What objects ‘do’ (in
relation to indigenous histories): Are reconnection projects involving
indigenous people and historic objects ‘healing,’ and if so, how?
Whitbeck, Les et al. 2004.
‘Conceptualizing and Measuring Historical Trauma among American Indian People.’
American Journal of Community Psychology 33: 119-30.
Chandler, M., and C. Lalonde.
‘Cultural continuity as a moderator of suicide risk among Canada’s First
Nations.’ [pdf available online at: http://web.uvic.ca/~lalonde/manuscripts/1998TransCultural.pdf
]
Racette, S. ‘Confessions and
reflections of an Indigenous research warrior,’ p57 http://www.abdn.ac.uk/materialhistories/documents/proceedings.pdf
Thompson, J., and I. Kritsch. 2005. Long
ago sewing we will remember: the story of the Gwich'in traditional caribou skin
clothing project. Québec: Canadian Museum of Civilization.
Thornton, R. 2004. ‘Repatriation as
healing the wounds of the trauma of history,’ in Fforde et al, The Dead and
their Possessions, pp.17-24.
OR
Yellowman, C. 1996
'Naevahoo'ohtseme' - We are Going Home: The Cheyenne Repatriation of Human
Remains' St Thomas Law Review 9: 103-116.
Tapsell, P. 2001. Pukaki: A Comet
Returns. * read Introduction and chapter ‘Comet’, and dip into the
rest of the book.
Peers, L. 2003. 2003 ‘Strands which refuse to be braided: hair samples from
Beatrice Blackwood’s collection at the Pitt Rivers Museum.’ Journal of
Material Culture 8(1):75-96. Online at: http://mcu.sagepub.com/content/8/1/75.abstract
Butler, Beverley. 2011. ‘Heritage as
pharmakon and the Muses as deconstruction: problematizing curative museologies
and heritage healing.’ Pp. 354-371 in The Thing About Museums: Objects and
Experience, Representation and Contestation, eds. S. Dudley et al. London:
Routledge.
Connerton, Paul. 2011. The Spirit
of Mourning: History, Memory and the Body. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
You may wish to check
out the general news and publications of the Canadian Aboriginal Healing
Foundation, http://www.ahf.ca/ and the
Australian Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Healing Foundation, http://www.healingfoundation.org.au/
Week 7 ‘Handling’
Digital Indigenous Heritage
Salmond, A. ‘Digital Subjects, Cultural Objects: Special
Issue introduction.’
Journal of Material Culture September 2012 17: 211-228,
Ngata, W., H. Ngata-Gibson, and A. Salmond. ‘Te Ataakura: Digital taonga and cultural innovation
Journal of Material
Culture September 2012 17:
229-244.
Maui Solomon and Susan Thorpe. Taonga Moriori: Recording and revival
Journal of Material Culture September 2012 17: 245-263.
Carl Hogsden and Emma
K Poulter. The real other? Museum
objects in digital contact networks
Journal of Material Culture September 2012 17: 265-286.
Jenny Newell Old objects, new
media: Historical collections, digitization and affect
Journal of Material
Culture September 2012 17:
287-306.
Week 8 Being Blackfoot
and working with museum objects: a discussion with Alvine Mountain Horse,
Narcisse Blood, Joey Blood.
_____________________
Course Materials: Museums &
Critical Heritage [undergraduate
course]
Dr. Kathleen Fine-Dare
We explore the rapidly growing, international field
of critical heritage studies. The focus is on what museums, monuments, cultural
performances, and other places and events dedicated to local, regional, and
world heritage signify regarding the relationship of public culture to identity
and power. Case studies of tourist destinations, heritage sites, and museum
exhibits are a central part of the course.
Required texts
Voices of a Thousand
People: The Makah Cultural and Research Center. Patricia Pierce Erikson, with Helma Ward & Kirk
Wachendorf. Foreword by Janine Bowechop. Lincoln: University of
Nebraska Press (2002).
Contested Histories in Public Space:
Memory, Race, and Nation.
Daniel J. Walkowitz and Lisa Maya Knauer, eds. Durham NC: Duke
University Press (2009).
Letting Go? Sharing Historical
Authority in a User-Generated World. Bill Adair, Benjamin Filene, and Laura Koloski,
eds. Walnut Creek CA: Left Coast Press (2011).
Living Homes for Cultural
Expression: North American Native Perspectives on Creating Community Museums. Karen Coody Cooper and
Nicolasa I. Sandoval, eds. NMAI Editions. Washington DC: National
Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution (2006).
[selections] http://nmai.si.edu/sites/1/dynamic/downloads/downloads_filename_66.pdf
Saving Our Vanishing Heritage:
Safeguarding Endangered Cultural Heritage Sites in the Developing World. Global Heritage Fund http://globalheritagefund.org/what_we_do/editorial_committee#
Written Assignments
#1: Visit a museum facility in the area (as I cannot impose
additional “costs” to the course, you must choose if you wish to visit a
facility that charges or is free). This can be the Fort Lewis College Center of
Southwest Studies (free), the Durango Discovery Museum (charge), the Durango
and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad Museum (perhaps free), the Southern Ute
Cultural Center (charge), or any other museum-like center. In your 4-5 page
analysis (which must first describe the center) discuss the following: How did
the museum present information in terms of historical authority? How were
you invited as a visitor to participate in the museum experience?
#2: Write a summary and comparison of TWO
lectures you attend (either in or outside of class). You must a) describe
each one separately (speaker, main points made); and then b) connect the
lectures by comparing how they addressed any key points covered in this course.
#3: An essay based on Letting Go?
Projects (Choose one):
1) Select one of the global museum facilities/projects
discussed in our readings and conduct research that updates their progress
since the article or chapter was published. You must base this research
on publications, online resources, and direct contact via emails and/or phone
calls with museum personnel. Part of your research should be an
evaluation of progress, an assessment of what they need to achieve desired
success, and a set of suggestions to further achieve their goals. This
project will result primarily in a paper, but your goal should also be some
kind of product that will raise awareness and perhaps needed funds for the
facility (Main class resources: Voices, Contested Histories, and Living
Homes texts).
2)
Create a project with a local museum facility or project that could possibly be
carried out in the future through an internship via Anth 316 or some other means
(there would likely be no time this semester, but you would have a concrete
plan in place for next term, or at least something the facility could put in
its files for future work). What you will do this semester is actually
create the internship proposal and plan based on the needs of the
facility/faculty member, etc. to create a particular exhibit, gather oral
histories, expand its interpretive and participatory base through web-based
means, etc. This could be with the FLC Center of Southwest Studies
(museum and/or archives), with the Department of Anthropology (oral history
project, collections, archaeological field school aftermath), the Durango
Discovery museum, etc. (Main class resources: Voices, Living Homes, and
Letting Go? Texts—also consult The Participatory Museum).
3) Create a project that will inform and educate the public
about the need to identify and safeguard cultural heritage sites in general and
one identified site in particular. In addition to a paper, you must create a
tangible product in the end (e.g., a museum case full of information
accompanied by a brochure/pamphlet that is available for distribution and
placed on line; a poster that can be displayed in various places and also
placed online, linked to the Dept of Anthropology Facebook Page; an online
campaign for awareness, etc. While much of this information will come
from the Global Heritage Fund site, your task is to expand this and to find
very definite and effective ways to spread awareness locally. (Main class
resources: Saving Our Vanishing Heritage, Letting Go?, and Living Homes texts).
Films
Tale of a Totem - (1998 WFYI Productions, Indianapolis, ca. 60
minutes).
[Eiteljorg Museum, Indianapolis, and
Sitka National Historical Park—Governor Brady (AK) collection; Bill Holm
narrates]. What would a street on the near west side of Indianapolis be named
Totem Lane? That’s the simple question Dr. Richard Feldman asked his
neighbors when he made the move to the city’s Golden Hill neighborhood.
The answer to his inquiry would take Dr. Feldman on a remarkable journey in
search of a missing Native American totem pole that had once found a home on a
street in Indianapolis. Dr. Feldman’s search began with a modest goal in
mind: He simply wanted to see if a photograph of the pole might still
exist. He soon found himself, however, on the track of an historic
detective story that would take him from the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair to the
early decades of the 20th century, when the pole had stood as a
curious Indianapolis landmark, to present-day Alaska. The Golden Hill
Totem, Dr. Feldman would discover, was the sole missing pole from the world’s
most celebrated and studied collection of totem poles, which today are
preserved in Sitka National Historical Park in Alaska. Tale of a Totem
retraces Dr. Feldman’s quest, and witnesses the mysterious power of the pole to
bring diverse communities together. His ultimate vision sees the rebirth
of the Golden Hill Totem Pole, as a replica of it is hoisted on the grounds of
the Eiteljorg Museum of American Indians and Western Art in Indianapolis during
a traditional Native pole raising.
Stolen Spirits of Haida Gwaii
- (Primitive Entertainment, Canada,
2004, 73 minutes)
Toronto filmmaker Kevin McMahon and
his film crew accompanied the Haida delegation on a repatriation trip to
Chicago in 2003. His film reveals the whole repatriation process through the
stories and experiences of the people who participated, both Museum staff and
the Haida people. His film Stolen Spirits of Haida Gwaii won two
Geminis in 2005, one for Best Direction in a Documentary Program and the second
for Best History Documentary Program. Stolen Spirits
has also won the Grand Prix Rigoberta Menchu at the Montreal First People’s Festival
has been shown at film festivals and most recently, the 2005 Gold Ribbon Award
for Aboriginal Programming (Canadian Association of Broadcasters).
AVAILABLE FROM
Haida
Gwaii Museum
Box
1373 Skidegate, Haida Gwaii
Canada
V0T 1S1
p. 250.559.4643
f. 250.559.4662
muse@haidagwaii.net
Box of Treasures - (U’mista Cultural Society, 1983, 28
minutes). www.umista.ca
In Alert Bay, British Columbia, 1980
marked the opening of the U’mista Cultural Centre. This world class
museum was created after years of struggles by the Kwakwaka’wakw First Nations
to bring home their sacred masks that were seized by the Canadian government
after Dan Cranmer’s potlatch on Village Island in 1921. This film
documents the political struggles of the Kwakwaka’wakw First Nationals of Alert
Bay for the right to continue their traditions. It also celebrates the
opening of the U’mista Cultural Centre and the community’s ongoing efforts to
pass on the knowledge of their culture and language from the Elders right
through to adults and children in school.
In Search of the Hamat’sa - (Documentary Educational Resources, 2004, 33
minutes)
The Hamat’sa (or “Cannibal Dance”)
is the most important and highly represented ceremony of the Kwakwaka’wakw
(Kwakiutl) people of British Columbia. This film traces the history of
anthropological depictions of the dance and through the return of archival
materials to a First Nations community, presents some of the ways in which
diverse toward this history inform current performances of the Hamat’sa.
With a secondary focus on the filmmaker’s fieldwork experience, the film also
attends specifically to the ethics of ethnographic representation and to the
renegotiation of relationships between anthropologists and their research
partners. The material for this film was gathered and shot over the year
between 2002 and 2003 during the course of research for Aaron Glass’s
dissertation in Socio-Cultural Anthropology. The research process
consisted of extensive archival work – in which he traced the history of
ethnographic representation of the Hamat’sa (in texts, film and photography,
art gallery and museum display, and intercultural performance) – followed by an
eight month period of residence in the Kwakwaka’wakw community of Alert Bay,
BC. The film was edited in a documentary filmmaking course in the Program
for Culture and Media at New York University. It is intended to
communicate some of the complex issues involved in representing indigenous
peoples and their expressive practices, especially as anthropological materials
increasingly end up back in Native communities where they are used and debated
as one kind of historical resource among many.
Labranza Oculta: The Silent Walls
- (a Film by Gariela Calvache, Quito, Ecuador, 2010, 65 minutes). www.labranzaoculta.com
“The Silent Walls” portrays the lives and aspirations of workers restoring
Quito historic center, while reflecting on the fates of those who have been
forgotten by history.
Taypi Kala: Six Visions of
Tiwanaku - (1994 U of
California Extension Center, 53 min.)
This film, produced by archaeologist
Jeffrey D. Himpele, examines the ruins of the Bolivian site of Tiwanaku through
the perspective of five varying cultural groups: international
tourists, U.S. archaeologists, urban Bolivian university students, a local
Aymara family, and indigenous Aymara priests. Partially in English; Spanish
portion has English subtitles. The film consists of five segments illustrating
different cultural accounts and authorities that define this mythical
place. Camera and lighting, Lawrence J. Costa.
The African Burial Ground: An
American Discovery - (Longtail
Distribution, 1994, 30 mins per part).
Part I: The Search, explores the search and discovery of the African Burial
Ground in Lower Manhattan. It examines the archeological dig that
resulted in unearthing the remains of some 400 African men, women and
children. Part II: A History, presented the never-before-told
story of the history of Africans and African Americans in New York City from
1613 until July 4th, 1827—NYC’s Emancipation Day. Part III:
Politics and the People, documents the impact of local citizens upon the
African Burial Ground, witnessing the conflict between ‘the people’ and an
agency of the United States Government. This segment highlights an
essential and important civics lesson: how citizens can change the course of
history. Part IV: An Open Window, presents the long-range impact
of the African Burial Ground and its greater cultural effect on art,
literature, history, science and education in the United States.
_____________________
Course: Culture on Display: Tourism,
Heritage, Museums [undergraduate
course]
Dr.Tom
Guthrie
This course examines the production and display of “culture”
and “heritage” in public places worldwide, including tourist destinations,
museums, and historic and commemorative sites. We will focus on the
social and political implications of these processes and their relationship to
anthropology. Museums were an early locus of anthropology and continue to
be key sites for its public expression. The tourism and heritage
industries, now globally ubiquitous, rely on anthropological concepts and
processes (including collection, interpretation, and display), although
anthropologists have sometimes dismissed them as inauthentic. In the
early 20th century American anthropologists played a central role in shifting
the meaning of “culture” from something only upper-class Europeans had to
something everyone had. But this pluralistic conception of culture
quickly escaped their control. This semester we will investigate
“culture” on the loose and consider what studying the tourism and heritage
industries can teach us about anthropology. Topics will include the
collection and display of objects and bodies, styles of ethnographic
exhibition, the semiotics of tourism, conceptions of authenticity, cultural
performances and living cultural exhibitions, exoticism and the curatorial
management of difference, the memorialization of the past, and the
transformation of daily life into “heritage.” Throughout the semester the
relationship among public culture, nationalism, colonialism, and capitalism will
receive special attention. Students will gain a deeper understanding of
the culture concept in anthropology and practice cultural critique. We will
divide our time between reading, field trips to local museums and historic
sites, and a hands-on class project.
Learning outcomes
By the end of the semester students
will be able to
1. critically
analyze museum exhibits, tourist sites, and historic sites
2. describe
the relationship between the tourism and heritage industries and anthropology
3. deconstruct
the concepts of culture and authenticity
4. explain
the logics and techniques of cultural display and the semiotics of tourism
5. describe
how groups memorialize the past as they position themselves in the present
6. work
collaboratively to produce a sensitive and critical cultural exhibition
Required Readings
Bruner, Edward M. 2005. Culture on Tour: Ethnographies of
Travel. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Errington, Shelly. 1998. The Death of Authentic Primitive
Art and Other Tales of Progress. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. 1998. Destination
Culture: Tourism, Museums, and Heritage. Berkeley: University of California
Press.
Lonetree, Amy. 2012. Decolonizing Museums: Representing
Native America in National and Tribal Museums. Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press.
Museum reviews
Students will write short, critical
reviews of two museums in or around Greensboro. They may choose between
the Wake Forest Museum of Anthropology (which we will visit together), the
International Civil Rights Center and Museum, the Greensboro Historical Museum,
or another museum approved by the instructor. These reviews will analyze
architecture, spatial organization, exhibit content and design, visitor
experiences, and programs.
Oral presentation
Each student will give a formal 15
minute oral presentation on Inuit art, the history of its commodification (the
development of an Inuit art market), Inuit ethnology and history, Inuit peoples’
relationship to the natural environment, or the relationship between Inuit
peoples and museums. These presentations will require independent
research and reading and will provide a foundation for our class project.
Research paper
Students will write a 12 to 15 page
research paper that critically analyzes a site or set of sites where culture or
heritage is on display. Papers might examine museums, cultural centers,
historic sites, monuments, living exhibitions, commemorations, or tourist destinations.
As part of the research process students will submit annotated bibliographies.
Class project
All semester long we will work
collectively to help develop an exhibit of Inuit art from the eastern
Arctic. The exhibit will be on display in the Guilford College art
gallery during the fall semester. Our class will help conceptualize the
exhibit (themes, layout, etc.), select objects for display, and write object
labels and other exhibit text. This project will give us hands-on experience
with the development of an actual exhibit and afford an opportunity for
applying what we have learned through course readings, discussions, and
fieldtrips. It will require significant work outside of class. At
the end of the semester each student will write a short paper evaluating the
project.
Course Schedule
Week 1: Course introduction; the social construction of
“culture”
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 149–152 (up to “The Value of
Difference”)
Handler, Richard, and Jocelyn Linnekin. 1984. Tradition,
Genuine or Spurious. Journal of American Folklore 97.385: 273–290. M
Handler, Richard. 1988. “Having a Culture”: The Preservation
of Quebec’s Patrimoine. In Nationalism and the Politics of Culture in
Quebec, 140–158. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press.
Mullin, Molly H. 2001. Selections from Culture in the
Marketplace: Gender, Art, and Value in the American Southwest (1–8, 12–21).
Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press.
Week 2: Collecting, displaying, and repatriating objects in
museums
Fieldtrip this week to Wake Forest University Museum of
Anthropology (time TBA)
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett Chapter 1 (17–47)
Gulliford, Andrew. 2002. Bones of Contention: The
Repatriation of Native American Human Remains. In Sacred Objects and Sacred
Places: Preserving Tribal Traditions, 13–31. Boulder: University Press of
Colorado.
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett Chapter 1 (47–78)
Week 3: Museum and exhibit reviews
Post museum review 1
Class project: introduction
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett Chapter 7
(249–256)
Berlo, Janet Catherine, and Aldona Jonaitis. 2005. “Indian
Country” on Washington’s Mall—The National
Museum of the American Indian: A Review Essay. Museum
Anthropology 28.2: 17–30.
Clifford, James. 1991. Four Northwest Coast Museums: Travel Reflections. In Exhibiting
Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, ed. Ivan Karp and
Steven D. Lavine, 212–254. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press.
Levy, Janet E. 2006. Prehistory, Identity, and
Archaeological Representation in Nordic Museums. American Anthropologist
108.1: 135–147.
Penn, Mischa, Gregory Laden, and Gilbert Tostevin. 2008.
Review Essay: RACE: Are We So Different? Museum Anthropology 31.2:
148–156.
Week 4: Native Americans and museums
Oral presentations
Lonetree Chapter 1 (1–28)
Fienup-Riordan, Ann. 1999. Collaboration on Display: A
Yup’ik Eskimo Exhibit at Three National Museums. American Anthropologist 101.2:
339–358.
Week 5: Curatorial collaboration
Class project: object selection and
exhibit conceptualization
Lonetree Chapter 2 (29–72)
Week 6: The National Museum of the American Indian
Post museum review 2
Lonetree Chapter 3 (73–122)
Class project: object selection and
exhibit conceptualization
Week 7: Decolonizing museums
Post research paper topic
Class project: curatorial vision
statement, mapping out writing projects
Lonetree Chapters 4 and 5 (123–175)
Week 8: Authenticity and “primitive art”
Errington Introduction (1–45) [plus
class project]
Errington Chapter 1 (49–69)
Week 9: Authenticity and “primitive art”
In-class progress reports on research this week
Errington Chapters 2 and 3 (70–117)
[plus class project]
Errington Chapters 4 and 5 (118–157)
Week 10: Authenticity and the semiotics of tourism
Post annotated bibliography
Class project
Bruner Introduction (1–29)
Culler, Jonathan. 1981. Semiotics of Tourism. American
Journal of Semiotics 1.1–2: 127–140.
Optional:MacCannell,
Dean. 1999 [1976]. Staged Authenticity, and A Semiotic of Attraction. In The
Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class, 91–133. New York: Schocken
Books.
Week 11: Tourism and (post)colonialism among the Maasai
In-class progress reports on research this week
Bruner Chapter 1 (33–70) [plus class
project]
Bruner Chapter 2 (71–100)
Week 12: Tourism and anthropology in Bali
Post research paper argument statement
Class project
Bruner Chapter 7 (191–210)
Week 13: Historic sites: Illinois and Ghana
Post research paper
Bruner Chapters 4 and 5 (127–168)
Bruner Chapter 3 (101–123)
Week 14: Festivals; the avant-garde; course conclusion
Post evaluation of class project
Wrap up course and class project
(during final exam period)
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett Chapter 6
(203–248)
Alternative topics for weeks 13 and
14
Errington: second part of book
(nationalism, modernization, and development)
Kirshenblatt-Gimblett: Ellis Island
and Plymouth Plantation
Bruner: ethnic theme parks
Worlds fairs
_____________________
Course: Introduction to Museum Anthropology
[undergraduate/graduate course]
Dr. Jen Shannon
This
course traces the development of anthropology in museums from the late 19th
century to the present day. Museums are
places where ideas, identities, theories and power relations are debated,
created, and placed on display. They are
places that reflect and sometimes challenge dominant ideologies about indigenous
peoples to a wide audience. The
objectives of this course include: introducing students to a range of topics in
contemporary museum politics, theory and practice; presenting the legacy of
collecting and challenges of representing others; and, illustrating the
interplay of anthropology, material culture and colonialism in order to
understand the complex history of contemporary anthropology museums and the
move towards collaborative museum anthropology.
***
Museums
are about cannibals and glass boxes, a fate they cannot seem to escape no
matter how hard they try… Museums are cannibalistic in appropriating other
peoples’ material for their own study and interpretation, and they confine
their representations to glass box display cases. There is a glass box for everyone…
The Objective, then, is not simply
to criticize museums but also to attempt to locate them (and the critiques)
within their social, political, and economic contexts.
— Michael Ames, Cannibal Tours and Glass Boxes: The Anthropology of Museums (1992:
3, 5)
***
Course Outline
PART I:
Introduction to the Course and to Museum Anthropology
Week 1:
Introduction to the Course
Welcome! | What
is this course about? Why take
a course about museum anthropology? What are the assignments required to
complete this course? How can a student do well in this class?
What is Museum
Anthropology? | What
is a museum? What is museum anthropology? What is the Anthropology of
Museums? How does this approach to
museums fit into Cultural Anthropology
as a discipline? And Museum Studies?
Recommended
Readings
Erikson
2002 Introduction to Voices of a Thousand People
Handler
1993 An anthropological definition of the museum
Karp
and Kratz 2006 Introduction - Museum Frictions
Week 2: The
Power of Language and Imagery
The Power to
Name | What
is the role of language and imagery in forming prevailing notions about
indigenous peoples in the Americas?
Museums as
Institutions of Ideology, Imagery and Power
|
What are some important concepts we can use
to talk about understand the role of museums in society, and how they form,
reflect, or work against prevailing notions about indigenous peoples over time?
Required
Readings
Thomas
2000 Columbus Arawaks and Caribs
Hanson
1999 What’s in a Name
Deloria
P 2004 Expectation and Anomaly
Karp
1991 Other Cultures in Museum Perspective
Clifford
1997 Museums as Contact Zones
Recommended
Readings
USCHR
2007 Indian Tribes
Deloria
P 2002 Thinking About Self in a Family Way
Forte
2006 Dual Absences of Extinction and Marginality
PART II: Early
Museum Theory and Practice
Week 3: Early Ideology, Classification
and Display
World Fairs: “Progress” and Colonialism
on Display | What is the connection between nation,
expansion, colonialism and the display of indigenous peoples? What did the imagery and narrative of these
forms of display communicate?
Why Museums | What
kinds of purposes did early museums serve? Who owned them and who could visit
them?
Required
Readings
Hinsley
1991 The World as Marketplace
Ames
1992 The Development of Museums in the Western World
Errington
1998 Intro - Two Centuries of Progress
Recommended
Readings
Web
Topic, search for Ishi and Minik
Fogelson
1991 Red Man in the White City
Ames
1992 How Anthropologists Stereotype Other People
Great Museums:
Riches Rivals & Radicals: 100 Years of Museums in America, Online streaming
movie at YouTube (60min)
Thomas
2000 A short history of scientific racism in America
Week 4: Early Collecting
Class visit to the CU Museum of Natural
History and the CU Art Museum
The Legacy of Early Collecting |
What were some of the impacts of
collecting practices for museums and source communities?
Required
Reading
Jacknis
2002 Collecting - Storage Box of Tradition
O’Hanlon
2000 Introduction - Hunting the Gatherers
Lange
and Leonard 1993 CUMNH Collections - Legacy of Joe Ben Wheat
Web
search, CU Art Museum in the Visual Arts Complex
Web
search, CU Museum of Natural History
Recommended
Reading
Cannizzo
1998 Gathering Souls and Objects
Mayer
2002 In the Spirit of a Different Time
Thomas
1991 The European Appropriation of Indigenous Things
Week 5: Early Display – Museum
Anthropo-logy and Debates
Typology | What is universal evolutionism? What do
forms of classification and display tell us about the underlying theories of
their producers?
Geography/Culture Area | What is
cultural relativism? What was Boas’
critique of typological display, and museums more generally? What were the
assumptions behind salvage anthropology? What are its legacies?
Required
Reading
Chapman
1985 Arranging Ethnology
Franz
Boas (1858-1942), Online streaming video reserve
Boas
1907 Some Principles of Museum Administration
Jacknis
1985 Franz Boas and Exhibits
Biolsi
1997 The Anthropological Construction of Indians
Recommended
Reading
Degenerate
Art, Word Document
Boas
1887 The Occurance of Similar Inventions
Boas
1887 Museums of Ethnology and Their Classification
Powell
1887 Museums of Ethnology and Their Classification
Jacknis
2004 A Magic Place
Jenkins 1994
Object Lessons and Ethnographic Displays - museums and making of American anthropology
Nurse
2006 Marius Barbeau and the Methodology of Salvage Ethnography in Canada
Teslow
1998 Reifying Race
Sahlins
1999 Two or Three Things I Know about Culture
Week 6: Classifying, Circulating, and Valuing Objects
Art versus Artifact |
What determines the classification
of objects as either art or artifact? How is this classification related to
issues of primitivism and modernism? Text and context? How does the classification of objects engage debates about
authenticity and why? How does this form
of judgment affect the experience of source communities?
Commoditization and the Art Market | How
are art markets and museums related? How
and why do art and artifacts acquire value? What kinds of objects are allowed
into collections, and what kinds are not?
Why?
Required
Reading
Myers
2004 Unsettled Business
Cruikshank
1995 Imperfect Translations rethinking objects
Welsch
2004 Authenticity of Constructed Art Worlds
Phillips
1995 Why Not Tourist Art
Hollowell 2004
Intellectual Property Protection and the Market for Alaska Native Arts and
Crafts
Wade
1985 The Ethnic Art Market in American Southwest
Recommended
Reading
Phillips
and Steiner Art Authenticity and the Baggage of Cultural Encounter
Price
2007 Into the Mainstream - Shifting authenticities in art
Zilberg
1995 Shonas Sculptures Struggle
Danto
1988 Art and Artifact with Vogel Introduction
Graburn
1999 Ethnic and Tourist Arts Revisited
Steiner
1995 The Art of the Trade - on value and authenticity
Marcus
and Myers 1995 The Traffic in Art and Culture - An introduction
Handler
1985 Authenticity
Phillips
2002 Where is Africa
1992
Task Force Report on Museums and First Peoples
Week 7: The Ethnography of Museums
Museum ethnography | What is ethnography? What does an ethnography approach to museums
provide that is different from other approaches?
Ethnographic Practice in the Museum | How is ethnography practiced in museums?
Required
Reading
MacDonald
2001 Ethnography in the Science Museum
Isaac
2005 Mediating Knowledges
Bowechop
and Erikson 2005 Forging Indigenous Methodologies Review
Shannon
2009 The Construction of Native Voice at the NMAI
Recommended
Reading
Shannon
2014 Project iShare
Shannon
2013 Collaborative Anthropology with the MHA Nation
Smith
1999 Introduction - Decolonizing Methodologies
Merrill
et al 1993 Return of Ayahu
Week 8: RECAP
and MIDTERM
Recap and Exam
Review
Midterm Exam (for undergrads) / Object
Research Essay due (for grads)
Required
Reading
Pulford
and Rice 2008 How to take Anthropology Tests
Sp2013
ANTH 4045 Midterm Study Guide
PART III: Representation and Critique
Week 9: Indigenous Responses to Museums
and Anthropology
Critiques of Rights and
Representations | What
was the Red Power movement of the 1960s about? What was the heightened
attention to critiques of representation in the 1980s about? What impacts did
they have in arts and law?
Politics of Representation and Protests
of Exhibitions | How did
these critiques of representation and rights struggles affect museum
practice? What were some of the protests
that highlighted this struggle? *DRAFT
RESEARCH PROPOSAL DUE*
Required
Reading
Deloria
V 1988 Anthropologists and Other Friends
Native
American Legal Milestones handout
Clifford
1997 Museums as Contact Zones
Strong
1997 Exclusive Labels
Chaat
Smith 2009 On Romanticism
Recommended
Reading
Boyer
2001 Reflections of Alcatraz
“Alcatraz
is not an island”, search website
Mithlo
1995 History is Dangerous
Phillips
2000 APEC at the Museum of Anthropology
Task
Force Report on Museums and First Peoples 1992
Butler, Shelly
(1999) Contested Representations: Revisiting Into the heart of Africa, book on
library reserve
Into the Heart
of Africa - Protest Case Study, handout
Spirit Sings -
Protest Case Study, handout
Week 10: Case Studies –Challenges of
Representation
Representing Others: Musee du Quai Branly (www.quaibranly.fr/) | Art or Artifact?
Collaborative Representation: NMAI (www.nmai.si.edu) | What is “Native Voice”?
Self-Representation: Makah Cultural and
Research Center
(www.makah.com) | What is “autoethnography”?
Required
Reading
Clifford
2007 Quai Branly in process
Price
2010 Return to Musee du Quai Branly
Price
2007 Paris Primitive Excerpt
Cobb
2005 NMAI Sharing the Gift
Mithlo
2004 Red Mans Burden - Politics of Inclusion in Museums Settings
Erikson
2004 Defining Ourselves Through Baskets
Recommended
Reading
Lebovics 2006
Musee du Quai Branly Art Artifact Spectacle
Paris Primitive
by Sally Price (2007), Book at course reserves
Phillips 2006
Disrupting Past Paradigms NMAI
Contesting
Knowledge: Museums and Indigenous Perspectives edited by Susan Sleeper Smith
(2009), Book on reserve
Voices of a
thousand people : the Makah Cultural and Research Center by Patricia Erikson
et. al. (2002), Book on reserve
PART IV: Contemporary Theory and
Practice
Week 12: Contemporary Exhibitions
Thinking Back, Moving Forward (Presentation
on Igloolik Exhibit)
Contemporary Exhibits with/about Native
Americans and Careers in Museum
Anthropology *REVISED PROPOSAL AND
ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE*
Required
Reading
Fitzhugh
1997 Ambassadors in Sealskins
Video interviews
with Smithsonian NMNH Anthropologists online, esp. Loring, Pérez Báez
Video interview online
with Chip Colwell-Chanthaponh, Denver Museum of Nature and Science Anthropology
Curator
Video interview online
with Steve Nash, Denver Museum of Nature and Science Archaeology Curator
Week 13: Reconnecting Objects to Originating
Communities – Repatriation
Objects as Cultural Property |
What is the relationship between
objects in museums and their origins?
How does recognition of source community relationships to objects impact
museum practice?
Repatriation |
What is repatriation? What is
NAGPRA? What kinds of objects or knowledge can be repatriated, to whom, and
how? How does it affect source
community-museum relations and practices?
*RESEARCH PAPERS DUE IN CLASS
(4)*
Required
Reading
Box
of Treasures, online streaming video reserve (28min)
Everything
was Carved, video at Pitt Rivers Museum website (50min)
Rosoff
1998 Integrating Native Views at the NMAI
Recommended
Reading
Native
American Grave Protection and Repatriation Act (1990), Online website
Echo
Hawk 2002 Keepers of Culture
Merrill
et al 1993 Return of Ahayuda
Jacknis
1996 Repatriation as Social Drama
Cranmer
1995 Potlatch Repatriation
gii-dahl-guud-sliiaay
1995 Cultural Perpetuation
Udvardy
et al 2003 Transatlantic Trade in African Ancestors
Saunders
1997 Contested Ethnie in two Kwakwakawakw Museums
Week 14: Museums as sites of Social
Relations – Collaboration
What does Museum Collaboration Look
Like? |
Why is collaboration important?
Who are the participants and what are the
goals, constraints, and methods of collaboration? (Presentation
about iShare/MHA Project)
In Class Peer Review Consultations *PEER REVIEW FORMS DUE IN CLASS*
Required
Reading
Boellstorff
2010 Three Tips for Making Peer Review Work for You
Recommended
Reading
Enola
Gay, handout
Ames
1999 How to Decorate a House
Archambault
1993 American Indians and American Museums
Clifford
2004 Looking Several Ways
Conaty
2003 Glenbows Blackfoot Gallery
Fienup-Riordan
1999 Collaboration on Display
Herle
2000 TSI Stories from an exhibition
Kahn
2000 Not really pacific voices
Week 15: Decolonizing the Museum
Critical Museology and Revisiting the Critiques
of Representation | Does collaboration address critiques of
representation? Does it change the content or intent of exhibits? Of
collecting?
Decolonizing the Museum | What does decolonizing the museum mean? Has this been achieved somewhere? Why or why
not?
Required
Reading
Smith
1999 Introduction - Decolonizing Methodologies
Smith
1999 Responding to the Imperatives of an Indigenous Agenda
Recommended
Reading
Kreps
Changing the Rules of the Road 2
Lonetree
2012 Decolonizing Museums
Week 16: The Future of Anthropology
and/in the Museum
Online Exhibits and Digital Returns/Access
Contemporary Issues and News regarding
Museum Anthropology *“REVISIONED”
RESEARCH PAPER DUE*
Required
Reading
Reciprocal
Research Network short online video
Kate
Hennessy's Online Exhibit, Dane Wajich
Hennessy
2009 Digital Matters
Recommended
Reading
Dahl
and Stade 2000 Anthropology Museums
Harris
and O’Hanlon 2013 The Future of the Ethnographic Museum
ASSIGNMENTS SUMMARY
1)
In class writing/Informal writing - Handwritten.
During class you will occasionally be asked to consider a
particular question or topic and handwrite a response. These responses will be collected and are
another form of participation.
2)
Open Book Quizzes – at
D2L
In the D2L course assignments there are quizzes associated
with each week’s readings. You are
expected to complete 10 of the available 14 quizzes. The quizzes may include short or long answer,
multiple choice, true false, etc. If you
complete more than ten, your ten best scores will be counted. The quizzes are due the week in which the
readings are assigned. They are
submitted on the first attempt and cannot be retaken.
3)
Midterm Exam (for undergrads) / Object Research Essay (for
grad students)
There will be an in class exam half way through the semester
for undergraduate students. For graduate
students, an essay documenting a collection or class of objects from the CU
Museum of Natural History collection will be due (please consult with
instructor for further instructions).
For those undergraduate students who also would like to conduct object
research, you may select that as a topic for your final research paper.
4)
Research Paper
A research paper includes a thesis statement or argument,
evidence to support the thesis, and works cited on a separate page. The paper page limit does not include the
works cited and “afterthoughts” pages, which are required. I will provide more specific handouts to
guide you through this process. You will be asked to provide the following
materials throughout the semester:
1.
Proposal (1-2
paragraphs; 1 page)
2.
Annotated bibliography and revised proposal
(at least four sources; 2-4 pages)
3.
Four copies of Research Paper
due in class for your peers to review
4.
Peer Review forms
of your evaluation of your group’s papers due in class
5.
Final paper (10-15
pages) submission with “Afterthoughts”
_____________________
Course: Cultural Property [undergraduate]
Dr. Cara Krmpotich
This course explores the
relationship between cultural property and everyday life through the themes of
movement, ownership and value. Case studies, current events and debates help
students understand how heritage is informed by the multiple values of cultural
property. This course addresses issues
of cultural property and heritage in the contemporary world that are relevant
to all subfields of anthropology.
Course Objectives:
- Develop their analytical skills
- Build frameworks for understanding the relationships between cultural property, nationalism, identity, politics and power,
- Build frameworks for understanding the relationship between cultural property, aesthetics and economic value
- Become familiar with regional, federal and international laws and treatises governing the movement and protection of cultural property
- Develop their understanding of archaeologists’ and anthropologists’ roles as fieldworkers, researchers, advocates, policy writers and watchdogs
- Think critically and open-mindedly about the ethics of cultural property, archaeology and anthropology
- Enhance their abilities to articulate, orally and in writing, informed opinions.
Course Materials:
Rhodes, Robin F (ed). 2007. The
Acquisition and Exhibition of Classical Antiquities: professional, legal, and
ethical perspectives. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
John H. Merryman (ed). 2006. Imperialism, Art and Restitution.
Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press.
In
addition to readings, students are encouraged to read or follow relevant blogs
and websites, including
- Archeolaw: http://archaeolaw.com/
- International Foundation for Art Research (IFAR): www.ifar.org
Course Overview
Week 1 January 9: Introduction,
Definitions and Histories
-
Review
of syllabus
-
Definitions:
culture; property; cultural property; heritage
-
Historical
overview of cultural property in the West
Reading:
Barkan,
Elazar and Ronald Bush. 2002. Introduction. In Naming the
Stones, Claiming the Bones. E Barkan and R. Bush (eds). Pp
1-16. Getty Research Institute: Los Angeles. [Robarts: CC135 .C48 2002X – check
availability] [PDF in Blackboard]
Week 2 January 16: Nationalism
and Internationalism
-
Universal
or Encyclopaedic Museums
-
The
tensions between national and international agendas
-
Who
defines cultural property and to what purpose?
-
Who
benefits from cultural property? Who should benefit?
-
Formation
of Debating Groups
Readings:
Merryman,
John H. 2006. Introduction. In Imperialism,
Art and
Restitution, J Merryman (ed), pp. 1-14.
Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press. [Inforum: 344.094 I34I –
Course Reserves – check
availability]
Cuno,
James. 2006. View from the Universal Museum. In Imperialism,
Art and Restitution J Merryman (ed), pp. 15-36.
Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press. [Inforum: 344.094 I34I – Course Reserves – check
availability]
In-class Activity:
Students
will work in small groups to work through the debates for and against
encyclopaedic museums, using the following short articles to help develop their
own critiques. **Copies of the articles will be provided in class.
MacGregor,
Neil and J Williams. 2005. The encyclopaedic museum:
Enlightenment
ideals, contemporary realities. Public
Archaeology 4 (Part 1): 57-9.
Curtis,
Neil. 2006. A continuous process of reinterpretation: The
challenge
of the universal and rational museum. Public
Archaeology, 4 (Part 1): 50-6.
Week 3 January 23: Protection, Legislation
and Policy
-
Canadian Cultural Property Export and Import Act
-
International approaches to cultural property protection
Readings:
Gerstenblith,
Patty. 2007. The Acquisition and Exhibition of Classical
Antiquities:
the legal perspective. In The Acquisition
and Exhibition of Classical Antiquities: professional, legal, and ethical
perspectives R Rhodes (ed), pp. 47-60. University of Notre Dame Press:
Notre Dame, Indiana.
[Inforum:
069.5 A186A – Course Reserves – check
availability]
Henry,
Diane. 1995. Back from the Brink: Canada’s First Nations’ Right
to
Preserve Canadian Heritage. In UBC Law
Review Special Issue: Material Culture in Flux [e-article] http://www.heinonline.org.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/HOL/Page?collection=journals&handle=hein.journals/ubclr1995&id=13
Murphy,
J. David. 1995. “The Imperilment of Cultural Property in the
People’s
Republic of China.” In UBC Law Review:
91-118. [PDF in Blackboard]
In-class activity:
Work in
groups to explore the premises underlying the Canadian Cultural Property Export
and Import Act, and to learn the mechanics of identifying cultural property and
transporting cultural property in and out of Canada.
Week 4 January 30: Looting and
the Illicit Trade in Archaeological Materials
-
The
movement of looted items amongst, looters, dealers and the black market
Readings:
Bell,
Malcolm. 2007. Dealing with looted antiquities. In The Acquisition
and Exhibition of Classical
Antiquities: professional, legal, and ethical perspectives R Rhodes (ed), pp. 31-42. Notre
Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Bookidis,
Nancy. 2007. The Corinth Theft. In The
Acquisition and
Exhibition of Classical
Antiquities: professional, legal, and ethical perspectives R Rhodes (ed), pp. 119-131.
Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press.
Waxman,
Sharon. 2008. Loot: the battle over the
stolen treasures of
the ancient world. New York: Times Books. ** Ch 6
‘Chasing the Lydian Horde’ [PDF in Blackboard]
Week 5 February 6: Cultural
Property and Armed Conflict
- Hague
Conventions of 1899, 1907, 1954 and Second Hague Convention of 1999
- The
Geneva Convention
-
Cultural property and war crimes
Readings:
Bogdanos,
Matthew. 2010. Thieves of Baghdad: The search for Iraq’s
Stolen
Heritage. In Cultural Heritage Issues:
the Legacy of conquest, colonization and commerce. Nafziger, James A.R. and Ann M Nicgorski
(eds), pp223-236. Leiden: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers. [PDF in Blackboard]
[Robarts: K3791. C848 2009X]
Gibson,
McGuire. 2003. Art Loss in Iraq: Cultural Tragedy in Iraq: A
Report
on the looting of museums, archives and sites. [e-article]
Rose,
Brian. 2007. Talking to the Troops About the Archaeology of Iraq
and
Afghanistan. In The Acquisition and
Exhibition of Classical Antiquities: professional, legal, and ethical
perspectives R Rhodes (ed), pp. 139-151. Notre Dame: University of Notre
Dame Press. [Inforum: 069.5 A186A – Course Reserves – check
availability]
In-class Activity: ROM Google Hang-Out
Week 6 February 13: A Progression
of UNESCO Conventions
-
From
cultural property, to world heritage, to intangible heritage
-
Opportunities
and limitations of international treatises
ASSIGNMENTS: OSNI
STATEMENTS DUE IN CLASS
Readings:
Bortolotto, Chiara. 2007. From the “monumental” to the
“living”
heritage: a shift in perspective. In World
Heritage: Global Challenges, Local Solutions: proceedings of a conference at
Coalbrookdale, 4-7 May 2006 hosted by the Ironbridge Institute. R White and
J Carman (eds) pp. 39-46. Oxford:
Archaeopress. [PDF in Blackboard] [Robarts: CC135 .W74 2007 – check
availability]
Robinson,
Olivia and Trish Barnard. 2007. “Thanks, But We’ll Take It
From
Here…” In Museum International 59(4): 34-45. [e-article]
Shouyong,
Pan. 2008. “Museums and the Protection of Cultural
Intangible
Heritage.” In Museum International 60(1-2):
237-8.
[e-article]
UNESCO
Convention 1970. Reprinted in Rhodes, pp. 160-168, and available
on-line:
Week 7 February 20: Reading Break
(no class)
Week 8 February 27: Mid-term
In-class
mid-term, covering material from weeks 1-6.
Week 9 March 6: Repatriation I
-
Case Study: The Nefertiti Bust,
Egypt and Germany
-
Complex
histories and complex presents
Readings:
Evans,
Vanessa. 2011. “Germany Denies Egypt’s Request for the
Return
of 3,300 Year Old Bust of Queen Nefertiti.” Available on the Blog,
Elginism: http://www.elginism.com/20110222/germany-refuses-nefertiti-bust-return-request/
Siehr,
Kurt G. 2006. The Beautiful One Has Come – To Return: The
return
of the bust of Nefertiti from Berlin to Cairo. In
Imperialism, Art and Restitution J Merryman (ed) pp 114-134.
Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press. [Inforum: 344.094 I34I – Course Reserves – check
availability]
Urice,
Stephen K. 2006. The Beautiful One has Come - To Stay. In
Imperialism, Art and Restitution J Merryman (ed) pp 135-166.
Cambridge,
New York: Cambridge University Press.
[Inforum: 344.094 I34I – Course Reserves – check
availability]
Week 10 March 13: Repatriation II
-
NAGPRA:
An act about cultural property, religious freedom, or civil rights?
-
To
legislate, or not to legislate
Readings:
Brown,
Michael M and Margaret M Bruchac. 2006. NAGPRA from the
Middle
Distance. In Imperialism, Art and
Restitution J Merryman
(ed)
pp 193-217. Cambridge, New York: Cambridge University Press. [Inforum: 344.094 I34I – Course Reserves – check
availability]
Fine-Dare,
Kathleen. 2002. Grave Injustice: The
American Indian
Repatriation Movement and NAGPRA. Lincoln: University of
Nebraska
Press. Ch 4 NAGPRA and Repatriation Efforts in the
1990s,
pp 117-138. [PDF in Blackboard]
Stone T’ixwelátsa Repatriation
Report & Supplement Report I.
2006.
Presented
by Nooksack Indian Tribe to Burke Museum. Prepared by D. Schaepe and Herb Joe. [PDF in Blackboard] **Students should
survey, rather than closely read, this document. It serves as an example of how
communities and institutions work through NAGPRA and repatriation processes.
Week 11 March 20: Archaeology,
Cultural Property, and Development
Guest lecture: Daniella Jofre,
PhD Candidate
-
The
opportunities and limitations of archaeology tourism
-
Should
cultural property be prioritized in development strategies?
-
Local
and international interests
Readings:
Walker,
Cameron Jean. 2009. Heritage or Heresy:
archaeology and
culture on the Maya Riviera. Tuscaloosa: University of
Alabama Press. **Ch. 1: The Public Interpretation of Archaeological Sites. [Robarts: F1435.1 .Q78 W35 2009X – check
availability] [PDF in Blackboard]
Chirikure,
Shadreck. 2005. Cultural or Physical Survival? A Note on
the
Protection of Archaeological Heritage in Contemporary Africa. In Safeguarding Africa’s archaeological past:
selected papers from a workshop held at the School of Oriental and Asian
Studies, University of London, 2001 N Finneran (ed), pp. 7-10. Oxford:
Archaeopress. [Robarts: DT13 .S344 2005
– check
availability] [PDF in Blackboard]
Week 12 March 27: In-Class
Debates I.
See
Assignments for a description.
Week 13 April 3: In-Class Debates
II and Course Conclusions
-
Recap
of course themes
-
Discussion
of the implications of cultural property for anthropology, archaeology, and
various publics.
Assignments
OSNI Statement: 30%
In order
for an item to be designated Canadian cultural property, it must be shown to
possess “Outstanding Significance and National Importance,” or OSNI. OSNI Statements are key tools used by the
Review Board to determine whether an object is cultural property.
In
preparing an OSNI Statement, students will:
- gain first-hand experience of the processes related to cultural property designation in Canada
- improve their knowledge of the Canadian Cultural Property Export and Import Act
- increase their experience researching material culture
- gain experience writing technical reports.
Students
are to choose a moveable object
(artefact, work of art, archaeological assemblage, natural history specimen,
etc) that meets the criteria of “cultural property” according to the Canadian
Cultural Property Export and Import Act.
Students
must then research and prepare an OSNI statement, using the OSNI template
created by Canadian Heritage, and demonstrate the ways in which their object is
of outstanding significance and national importance.
The
Cultural Property Export and Import Act and the link to OSNI criteria,
guidelines and template are available in Blackboard.
In-class Mid-term
Exam: 30%
The mid-term
exam is designed to:
- encourage students to learn and recall key aspects of cultural property debates
- accommodate various learning styles
- encourage students to formulate and express informed and critical opinions on topics related to cultural property.
Students
will choose two essay questions to answer. Responses should be informed by
course readings, class discussion and personal study. Essays should demonstrate
a grasp of the course content, critical thinking and an ability to move between
specific cases and broader themes in anthropology. As students have sufficient
time to organize and present their ideas, essays will be assessed for the
accuracy and persuasiveness of content, and the clarity of the argument.
Debate and short
essay: 30%
15% (Group
mark for debate) + 15% (Individual mark for essay)
In weeks
12 and 13, student groups will conduct a series of debates in class. Groups
will work together to prepare their arguments ahead of time. Each side will
decide how to present its argument within the time allowed (see below), and
will need to formulate a rebuttal during the debate in response to the
opposition’s argument.
By
engaging in debates, students will:
- be exposed to an alternative form of intellectual exchange and expression,
- gain experience presenting an argument both orally and in writing,
- expand their knowledge of a specific area of cultural property,
- appreciate the multiple perspectives shaping cultural property issues,
- gain experience “thinking on their feet” and formulating responses in a time-sensitive situation,
- gain experience navigating group dynamics, and
- (as audience members) enhance their ability to critically assess arguments presented to them.
The Debate:
Teams
will speak either For the Motion (proposition), or Against the Motion
(opposition). An example motion is: “This House believes Canadian cultural
property belongs to all citizens equally.” Within the debate, teams will have
time to deliver two prepared arguments and to formulate a response or
“rebuttal” to the other team’s arguments in real time. There is also time for
arguments to be heard from “the floor” – that is, other students in the class.
Students must adhere strictly to the time limits. The timing of The Debate is
as follows:
- Proposition (in favour of the motion): 3 minutes
- Opposition (against the motion): 3 minutes
- Proposition: 3 minutes
- Opposition: 3 minutes
- Speeches from the floor: 1 minute each, up to 5 speakers
- Rebuttal Proposition: 2 minutes
- Rebuttal Opposition: 2 minutes
Not all
students need to present orally, but all students are encouraged to support their
colleagues who want to practice or improve their public speaking skills. Each
team will decide who will present various parts of the debate.
Accompanying Essay:
Each
student must prepare individually a short written assignment that:
- summarizes the arguments presented by their team,
- rebuts (or refutes) the main arguments against their position,
- articulates their personal position within the debate,
- includes references
Essays
must be no longer than 1000 words,
excluding references. They can be organized using subheadings or sections. Students
may draw upon class readings and/or additional examples to support their
claims. Academic referencing styles common to anthropology should be used.
Essays should be submitted in class the day of the debate.
Participation: 10%
Each
student will be allocated one week in which they are responsible for submitting
questions based on the readings and that will stimulate discussion in class. Students
must submit, via Blackboard Blog, one question per assigned reading by 5 pm on
the Tuesday before class. Constructive
participation in class discussions and contributing towards a supportive
learning environment will augment a student’s participation grade.
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