This course examines the science and art of museums from the perspective of social science.
Museums are themselves a cultural artifact, produced in specific milieus.
We will examine how Europeans' conceptions of other peoples and their theories concerning the similarities and differences of these peoples have shaped museum collections and displays of artifacts over time. We will also consider issues such as ethics, cultural sensitivity, funding, methods of collecting, and the return of cultural properties to their original owners in light of contemporary political and social movements. The course will be run seminar style. The professor will act as facilitator rather than lecturer. Students will be expected to prepare readings ahead of class and individual students will present the material in each class, stimulate discussion, and transcribe the class disucssion to the BSCW workspace so that each group, Fairfield and Le Moyne, may read the other's deliberations.