HIST 8725 - History and Theory of Musems

3 Credit Hours
Description
This course offers an introduction to the social, cultural, and political history of museums and to museum studies as a theoretical and interpretive discipline. We will focus on the formation of the modern museum and emphasize the U.S. context. Museums have always been conceived as centers for the production and dissemination of knowledge, but what criteria and whose authority determine the categories museums include - categories like art, history, science, nature and civilization? This course will explore these questions by looking at historical and theoretical discourse on museums in course readings and through our own investigation of museums through research and museum visits.