COGN 150: Politics and Cultures of Display Fall 2009 Wednesdays 9 - 11:50AM Office Hours: Th 10:30-noon Office: MCC 205  Professor: Brian Goldfarb email: bgoldfarbii@iiucsd.edu Communication Dept UCSD
Meetings		above: Guarded View (Fred Wilson, 1991) below: I Can't Imagine Ever Wanting to Be White  (Daniel Martinez, 1994)
Resources

course website: http://communication.ucsd.edu/goldfarb/cogn150f09/

Course Overview:

This senior seminar will be concerned with institutions and practices of public exhibition and display. Weekly readings, screenings and discussion topics will address historical and contemporary forms of display and their social, ethical, political and organizational dimensions. We eill take up range of examples of visual presentation including: the exhibitions of art and artifacts, modes of commercial display (from store windows to billboards to runway), and the re-conceptualization of these as digital forms. Participants will also visit exhibitions and other sites of display that we will discuss in seminar. While focusing attention on critical analysis of practices of display as a site of research, the course will also consider alternative approaches to curatorial practice and engage participants in rethinking exhibition strategies.

Questions addressed include: How have museums mediated relationships between among social, cultural and economic groups? What ethical challenges are presented by the representation of others? What are the interrelationships among public exhibition practices and commercial display?

Requirements

• Attendance is mandatory. Any unexcused absences will negatively impact your participation grade.
• Weekly readings (approx. 40-60 pages) and film/video viewing (UCSD film library reserve).
• Visits to museum exhibitions and public display sites (TBA)
• Each student will be responsible for preparing a short presentation and leading short discussion for one of the weekly topics or one of the optional topics listed at the bottom of the syllabus. This will be done in groups of 2-4.
• A term paper or project addressing a topic relevant to the seminar. A one page-proposal for the paper/project is due in week 5 and a first draft by week 8. Final term paper due the last week of class. (Specifications to be discussed in class).
  

Assessment

The main goals of this class are learning and preparation for research, as well as intellectual and creative work in the field. Grades are required, but I hope of secondary concern. Participants will be graded based on attendaence, participation, and completion of assignment, as follows:

• Attendance and participation (including off site exhibition visits and WebCT postings): 35%
• Short presentation on one week's topic: 25%
• Final paper/project 40%

Texts

• Karp, Kratz, Swarja, and Ybarr-Frausto , eds, Museum Frictions: Public Cultures/Global Transformations
• Bettina Carbonell, ed, Museum Studies: An Anthology of Contexts
• Additional readings on e-reserves or distributed as handouts

Course Schedule:

Note: This set of weekly topics/readings is provisional and may change. You are responsible for checking the online syllabus weekly for updated reading assignments, as well as off site experiences (be sure to refresh your browser to see the most recent version). Readings will be selected from those listed by the instructor through discussion with participants. Some optional readings will be summarized and discussed by presenters. Readings are due before the class each week and participants are required to post a set of two to three comments/questions on the readings to WEBCT by Tuesday at 8AM.

week: 1  |  2  |  3  |  4  | 5  |  6  |  7  |  8  |  9  |  10

Week One (Sept 30):  Introduction

• Course overview
• Research topics/objects of study
  

Week Two (Oct 7): Technologies of Representation and the Visualization of Modern Nations

• Benedict Anderson, "Census, Map, Museum" Chapter 10 in Imagined Communities (e-reserves--link to book, read chapter 10)
• Walter Benjamin, "A Small History of Photography," (e-resrves)
• Robert Smithson "Some Void Thoughts on Museums"

to skim:

• Bella Dicks, Culture on Display, "Ch 1: A Culture of Display," p16-40 (Digital copy linked to library catalog--not e-reserves)
  

Week Three 14): Origins of the Museum

• James Clifford, "On Collecting Art and Culture (e-reserves)
• Charles Wilson Peale: To the Citizens of the United States (MS 129-30)

Optional Reading:

• Henrietta Lidchi, pp155-166 of "The Poetics and Politics of Exhibiting Other Cultures" Ch 3 and associated readings A-E in Representation Stuart Hall et al,
• Paula Findlen, "The Museum: It's Clasical Etymology and Renaissance Geneology" (MS 23-50)
• .

Week Four (Oct 21): Representing Others, Representing Self: Ethnography and Struggles Over Display.
Meet at Chicano Park

• Afranz Boaz, "Museums of Ethnology and Their Classifications" (MS 139-142)
• Curtis M Hinsley, "The World As Marketplace: Commodification of the Exotic at the World's columbian exposition, Chicago, 1893" (e-reserves).

Optional Reading:

• Christopher Looby, "The Constitution of Nature: Taxonomy as Politics in Jefferson, Peale and Bartram" (MS 143-157)
• Fabrice Grognet "Ethnology: Science on Display" (MS 175-180)
• Zora Neale Hurston, "What White publishers Won't Print" (MS 216-219)
• Henrietta Lidchi, "The Poetics and Politics of Exhibiting Other Cultures" Ch 3 and associated readings A-E in Representation Stuart Hall et al,
• Coco Fusco, "The Other History of Intercultural Performance"
• Screening: The couple in the cage [videorecording] : a Guatinaui odyssey
  

Week Five (Oct 28): Globalization and Display

• Gustavo Buntinx, "Communities of Sense/Communities of Sentiment: Globalization and the Museum Void in an Extreme Periphery" (MF 219-241)
• François Lionnet, "The Mirror and the Tomb: Africa, Museums, and Memory" (MS 92-102)
• Webb Keane, "Money is No Object: Materiality, Desire and Modernity in Indonesian Society" (e-reserves)

Select one of the following to read as well:

• Gustavo Buntinx, "Communities of Sense/Communities of Sentiment: Globalization and the Museum Void in an Extreme Periphery" (MF 219-241)
• François Lionnet, "The Mirror and the Tomb: Africa, Museums, and Memory" (MS 92-102)
• W. J. T. Mitchell, "World Pictures: Globalization And Visual Culture"
• Holiday Dmitri, "Barbie’s Taiwanese Homecoming"

Week Six (Nov 4): Online Commerce and Pedestrian Archives

• Zoe Trodd, "Reading Ebay: Hidden Stores, Subjective Stories, and a People's History of the Archive"
• Daniel Mudie Cunningham, "Ebay and the Traveling Museum: Elvis Richardson's Slide Show Land"
  

Week Seven (Nov 11): Ability and Access to Exhibitions and Commercial Display                

• Richard Sandell, "Displaying Difference: Revealing and Interpreting the Hidden History of Disability" (e-reserves)
• Wendy Constantine, "Museums and the ‘Digital Curb Cut’" http://www.museotech.com/?page_id=28  

Optional Reading:

• Seeing beyond Sight: Photos by Blind Teenagers http://www.seeingbeyondsight.org/links/index.htm
• Geoffrey Swan, Teresa Meade, J. Douglass Klein,  and David Serlin, "Licking Disability: Reflections on the Politics of Postage Stamps"
• David Serlin, "Making Disability Public: An Interview with Katherine Ott"
• Blind at the Museum (Exhibition notes)   
• "Rethinking Disability Representation in Museums and Galleries" Jocelyn Dodd, Richard Sandell, Debbie Jolly and Ceri Jones
• Diane F. Britton, Barbara Floyd, and Patricia A. Murphy, "Overcoming Another Obstacle: Archiving a Community’s Disabled History"
• Amanda Kyser Bryan, "New Museum Theory In Practice: A Case Study Of The American Visionary Art Museum And The Representation Of Disability"
• Rosemarie Garland Thomson, "Dares to Stares: Disable Women Performance Artists & the Dynamics of Staring," Bodies in Commotion, Eds, Carrie Sandall and Philip Auslander (30-41)
• David Hevey, "Ch3: Into the Grotto of Charity Advertising," (pp 18-29), and "Ch4: Out of the Grotto," (pp 30-52), The Creatures Time Forgot "

Week Eight (Nov 18): Interpretation and Museum Education |  Difficult Displays and Exhibits

• Eilean Hooper-Greenhill, "Exhibitions and Interpretation: Museum Pedagogy and Cultural Change" (e-reserves)
• Bonnell J. and Simon, R. L. (2007 July). “Difficult” Exhibitions and Intimate Encounters. Museum and Society, 5(2): 65-85.

  Optional Reading:

• Tony Bennet, "Speaking to the Eyes," Ch 2 in The Politics of Display, ed, Sharon MacDonald (e-reserve under MacDonald)
• Gretchen Jennings and Maureen McConnell, "The Unexhibitable: A Conversation" (PDF)
  

Week Nine (Nov 24): Human Rights

• Terence Duff "Museums of 'Human Suffering' and the Struggle for Human Rights" (MS 117-122)
• Leslie Witz, "Transforming Museums on Postapartheid Tourist Routes" (MF 107-134)
• Ingrid Muan, "Musings on Museums from Phom Penh" (MF 157-179)

Week Ten (Dec 2): Historical Displays and the Politics of Memory

• Thomas Gieryn, "Balancing Acts: Science, Enola Gay, and History Wars at The Smithsonian" Ch 12 in The Politics of Display, ed, Sharon MacDonald (e-reserve under MacDonald)
• Richard Sandell, "Purpose, media and message: The St. Mungo museum of religious life and art and the Anne Frank House"- Chapter 3 from Museums, prejudice and the reframing of difference (e-reserves)

Optional Reading:

• Ciraj Rassol, "Community Museums, Memory Politics, and Social Transformation in South Africa: History Possibilities, and Limits" (MF 286-321)
• Lisa Corrin, "Mining the Museum" (MS 381-397)
• François Lionnet, "The Mirror and the Tomb: Africa, Museums, and Memory" (MS 92-102)

Finals Week (Dec 7): FINAL PAPER due on

Plans for Field Trips and Site Visits will be discussed in class. Some possible destinations:

• Balboa Park Museums: SD Museum of Art, Museum of Man, Mingei Museum, Natural History Museum, Museum of Photographic Art, World Beat Center, El Centro Cultural de la Raza
• San Dieog Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla
• Chicano Murals in Cesar Chavez Park
• A Mall
• The Zoo
• Los Angeles: Museum of Jurassic Technology, LA MOCA, LACMA

Alternative Weekly Topics:

Technology and Forms of Exhibition Interaction

• Vom Lehn andHeatha and Hindmarsh, "Rethinking Interactivity" (PDF)
• Sandifer, "Time-Based Behaviors at Interactive Science Museum (PDF)
• Spasojevic and Kindberg, "Augmented Museum Experience" (PDF)
• Andrew Barry, "On Inteactivity," Ch 6 in The Politics of Display, ed, Sharon MacDonald (e-reserve under MacDonald.)

Tactics of Display

Some Exhibition/Museum resources

• Blacks in Wax Museum
• American Dime Museum
• Museum of Jurassic Technology
• Mutter Museum
• American Visionary Art Museum