Long Road

I’ve designed a new course:

Exhibiting Culture: Museums, Media and Indigenous Cultures:

This course examines historical and contemporary practices of “exhibiting” culture in museums, in print, television, film, and online. Specifically we will explore the ways in which Indigenous cultures have been exhibited by others and equally how Indigenous peoples have produced their own exhibitions, displays, and media not only in reaction to dominant non-Indigenous representations, but out of long histories of performance, tradition and political organization. The class will focus on the paradigms of exhibition, the material practices of display and the political economy of cultural display globally. This course aims to familiarize students with the social, historical and political terrain of exhibitionary practices through ethnographic examples, critical theories and historical accounts. We will move through specific themes that relate to Indigenous museum and media practices critically analyzing the form and content, the historical significance and the modes of production in relation to the heterogeneity of Indigenous realities globally. The class will begin with a general introduction to museum practices grounded in colonial enterprises and move through to examine contemporary Indigenous media grounded in critical theories of museum studies, media, history, and indigeneity. These critical perspectives will give us a foundation to build upon for the rest of the course.

I’m still putting together the reading list. If anyone has any suggestions of books or articles they like I’d love to hear about them.