Call for Papers: Museums as a place for knowledge production and organization

Symposium "Museums as a place for knowledge production and organization"

Open to: PhD students in humanities

Dates: June 6, 2017, University of Neuchâtel and Maison Borel Foundation, 

Deadline: April 7, 2017

Every year since 2012, this Symposium is organized by the Institute for Art History and Museology of the University of Neuchâtel in collaboration with the Maison Borel Foundation. The 2017 edition is dedicated to Museums as a place for knowledge production and organization. 

The guest scholar, Dominique Poulot, is professor at the University of Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne; as a specialist in heritage and museums, his work constitutes a landmark on institutional history of museums. A debate format guided by professor Poulot, is proposed to foster an open discussion between researchers and participants.

Researchers are invited to reflect on the subject of Museums as a place for knowledge production and organization, following Dominique Poulot’s concern: “Any question about knowledge in today’s museums could be framed in these terms: How can we re-enchant the knowledge in museum objects?”.

Originally, museums and their scientific fields were closely tied. Over the years this relationship has gradually faded away. Charles W. Haxthausen thus speaks of two Art Histories, one at the museum, the other at the academy: « with their different audiences, different values, different conceptions of scholarship and, in some cases, mutual suspicion of each other’s professional practices » (The two Art Histories, 2002). The proposition holds true for other disciplines such as ethnography, which is treated in the book Academic Anthropology and the Museum (2001). What is the situation today, fifteen years after these reflections? 

Guidelines

Questions that contributions might explore include (but are by no means limited to):

- Temporary exhibitions as places for knowledge production.

- Evolution of knowledge organization, production and spread on museums.

- The balance between pleasure and knowledge in museums.

- Differences and similarities between knowledge production and organization in Museums and in the Academy.

- Research promotion in the museum.

- The diversification of the profession: competition and complementation between curators and museologists. 

- Knowledge production in a specific scientific field on universal museums.

- Coproduction of knowledge with the museum’s public.

- The curatorial turn, the figure of the museum’s curator as researcher, editor, director and producer of an exhibition.

Communications and discussions can take place in French and English. Contributions will be considered for publication. The call for papers is open to PhD students in humanities (museology, art history, history, archeology, ethnology,...). 

Proposals should include: a title, an abstract (approx. 300 words) and a CV. They are to be sent jointly to fernanda.celis@unine.ch and isaline.delederray@unine.ch, before April 7 2017.

Organization: Fernanda Celis and Isaline Deléderray-Oguey with prof. Pierre Alain Mariaux, Institute of Art History and Museology, University of Neuchâtel.