Skip to main page content

Museums and Historical Consciousness: Emergent Themes in Theory and Practice

Themes:
Heritage Changes the Local SocietiesMuseums
Tags:
Heritage changes the local societiesheritage and mobilityPost-colonial heritageGlobal vs local
What:
Roundtable
When:
15:30, Tuesday 7 Jun 2016 (1 hour 30 minutes)
How:

To date, very little literature explicitly explores the relationships of museums and heritage to historical consciousness, despite the overlapping concerns shared by these respective fields. This roundtable addresses the subject of museums as sites of historical consciousness by reflecting on a recent book project. Museums as Sites of Historical Consciousness: Perspectives on Museum Theory and Practice in Canada (working title, UBC Press, 2016) examines (1) ways that museums create and share knowledge about the past and operate as sites where historical consciousness is activated and constructed and (2) the diversity of Canadian perspectives on the subject. Chapters investigate museum constructs of history, calling on institutional, collective and individual forms of remembrance, while simultaneously weighing political, economic and personal motivations for teaching and learning about the past. Several notable themes emerged during the crafting of this book, such as the significance of visitor meaning-making as heritage, the dynamics of controversies and how museums address these, the rhetoric of official narratives, public trust in museums, and alternative methodologies informed by social justice and environmental perspectives. In a continual reflexive act by contributing authors, this round table will build on this recent publication, and themes that emerged within it, in order to expand the discussion on how museums, as sites of historical consciousness, can productively engage contemporary and historical social issues.

Susan Ashley, Jennifer Carter, Viviane Gosselin, Marie-Claude Larouche and Phaedra Livingstone (all confirmed participants) will discuss questions including the following: How does historical consciousness manifest in contemporary museum theory and practice? In what ways do museums foster various forms of interaction with evidence and ideas about the past? How can a greater understanding of the dynamics of historical consciousness contribute productively to contemporary social issues within museum and heritage frameworks?

Participant
UQAM
Professor
Moderator
Museum Consultant & Independent Scholar
Participant
Northumbria University
Participant
Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières, Département des sciences de l'éducation
Professeure

Sub Sessions

Session detail
Allows attendees to send short textual feedback to the organizer for a session. This is only sent to the organizer and not the speakers.
To respect data privacy rules, this option only displays profiles of attendees who have chosen to share their profile information publicly.

Changes here will affect all session detail pages