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Museum Studies
Genocide Studies September 7, 2023

Framing the Holocaust

Photographs of a Mass Shooting in Latvia, 1941

Valerie Hébert

Hosted by Hallel Yadin
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Framing the Holocaust: Photographs of a Mass Shooting in Latvia, 1941 (University of Wisconsin Press, 2023), edited by Valerie Hébert, compiles essays on the meaning of twelve photographs of a terrible …

Museum Studies

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Interviews with authors and scholars about new books in museum studies.

African American Studies August 29, 2023

Museums and Atlantic Slavery

Ana Lucia Araujo

Hosted by Katrina Anderson
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Ana Lucia Araujo's book Museums and Atlantic Slavery (Routledge, 2021) explores how slavery, the Atlantic slave trade, and enslaved people are represented through words, visual images, artifacts, and audiovisual materials in …
Library Science July 30, 2023

The Other Side of Empathy

Jade E. Davis

Hosted by Jen Hoyer
In The Other Side of Empathy (Duke UP, 2023), Jade E. Davis contests the value of empathy as an affective or critical tool. Whether focusing on technology, colonialism, or racism …
Library Science July 25, 2023

Picture Research

The Work of Intermediation from Pre-Photography to Post-Digitization

Nina Lager Vestberg

Hosted by Jen Hoyer
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Picture Research: The Work of Intermediation from Pre-Photography to Post-Digitization (MIT Press, 2023) focuses on how pictures were saved, stored, and searched for in a time before scanners, servers, and …
Eastern European Studies July 22, 2023

Post-Yugoslav Metamuseums

Reframing Second World War Heritage in Postconflict Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia

Nataša Jagdhuhn

Hosted by Iva Glisic
Nataša Jagdhuhn's Post-Yugoslav Metamuseums: Reframing Second World War Heritage in Postconflict Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Serbia (Palgrave Macmillan, 2022) analyzes the reframing of Second World War heritage in the …
American West July 20, 2023

Becoming Colorado

The Centennial State in 100 Objects

William Wei

Hosted by Daniel Moran
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In Becoming Colorado: The Centennial State in 100 Objects (UP of Colorado, 2021), historian William Wei paints a vivid portrait of Colorado history using 100 of the most compelling …
Anthropology July 18, 2023

Awkward Archives

Ethnographic Drafts for a Modular Curriculum

Margareta von Oswald and Jonas Tinius

Hosted by Adam Bobeck
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Awkward Archives: Ethnographic Drafts for a Modular Curriculum (Archive Books, 2022) proposes a manual for academic teaching and learning contexts. An ethnographic research approach is confronted with the demands of …
Critical Theory June 16, 2023

Cultural Policy Beyond the Economy

Value, Work and the Social

Deborah Stevenson

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
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What is the future for cultural policy? In Cultural Policy Beyond the Economy: Work, Value, and the Social (Edward Elgar, 2023),  Deborah Stevenson, Professor of Sociology and Urban Cultural Research in …
Art June 13, 2023

The Museum

A Short History of Crisis and Resilience

Samuel J. Redman

Hosted by Pierre d'Alancaisez
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On an afternoon in January 1865, a roaring fire swept through the Smithsonian Institution. Dazed soldiers and worried citizens could only watch as the flames engulfed the museum’s castle. Rare …
Art June 4, 2023

The Art of Looking

How to Read Modern and Contemporary Art

Lance Esplund

Hosted by Gregory LaBlanc
What is art, and who gets to define it? Museums have long staked a claim on knowing what to show, but there has always been a wide range of how …
Art May 13, 2023

Curating Fascism

Exhibitions and Memory from the Fall of Mussolini to Today

Sharon Hecker and Raffaele Bedarida

Hosted by Pierre d'Alancaisez
On the centenary of the fascist party's ascent to power in Italy, Curating Fascism: Exhibitions and Memory from the Fall of Mussolini to Today (Bloomsbury, 2022) examines the ways in which exhibitions …
Technology May 8, 2023

Extinct

A Compendium of Obsolete Objects

Barbara Penner, Adrian Forty, Olivia Horsfall Turner, and Miranda Critchley

Hosted by Morteza Hajizadeh
So-called extinct objects are those that were imagined but were never in use, or that existed but are now unused—superseded, unfashionable, or simply forgotten. Extinct: A Compendium of Obsolete Objects …
Library Science May 5, 2023

Spoils of Knowledge

Seventeenth-Century Plunder in Swedish Archives and Libraries

Emma Hagström Molin

Hosted by Jen Hoyer
In Spoils of Knowledge: Seventeenth-Century Plunder in Swedish Archives and Libraries (Brill, 2023), Emma Hagström Molin offers novel perspectives on document and book plundering. At the forefront of her study …
Art April 29, 2023

Uncommon Sense

Aesthetics after Marcuse

Craig Leonard

Hosted by Pierre d'Alancaisez
In Uncommon Sense: Aesthetics after Marcuse (MIT Press, 2022), Craig Leonard argues for the contemporary relevance of the aesthetic theory of Herbert Marcuse, an original member of the Frankfurt School and …
Library Science April 22, 2023

Archiving Cultures

Heritage, Community and the Making of Records and Memory

Jeannette A. Bastian

Hosted by Jen Hoyer
“Archivists feel that what their mission is, is to document society. And the question is: how can you document society if you only look at or value or preserve­—maybe value …
Art April 19, 2023

From Lapland to Sápmi

Collecting and Returning Sámi Craft and Culture

Barbara Sjoholm

Hosted by Miranda Melcher
Material objects—things made, used, and treasured—tell the story of a people and place. So it is for the Indigenous Sámi living in Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia, whose story unfolds …
Scholarly Communication March 26, 2023

Blunt Instruments

Recognizing Racist Cultural Infrastructure in Memorials, Museums, and Patriotic Practices

Kristin Hass

Hosted by Jen Hoyer
Blunt Instruments: Recognizing Racist Cultural Infrastructure in Memorials, Museums, and Patriotic Practices (Beacon Press, 2022) provides a field guide to the memorials, museums, and practices that commemorate white supremacy in …
Archaeology March 24, 2023

Unseen Art

Making, Vision, and Power in Ancient Mesoamerica

Claudia Brittenham

Hosted by Sarah Newman
In Unseen Art: Making, Vision, and Power in Ancient Mesoamerica (U Texas Press, 2023), Claudia Brittenham unravels one of the most puzzling phenomena in Mesoamerican art history: why many of …
Scholarly Communication March 17, 2023

To the Collector Belong the Spoils

Modernism and the Art of Appropriation

Annie Pfeifer

Hosted by Jen Hoyer
To the Collector Belong the Spoils: Modernism and the Art of Appropriation (Cornell UP, 2023) rethinks collecting as an artistic, revolutionary, and appropriative modernist practice, which flourishes beyond institutions like …
Russian and Eurasian Studies February 18, 2023

Russia's Regional Museums

Representing and Misrepresenting Knowledge about Nature, History and Society

Sofia Gavrilova

Hosted by Diana Dukhanova
Sofia Gavrilova's Russia's Regional Museums: Representing and Misrepresenting Knowledge about Nature, History and Society (Routledge, 2022) presents the results of extensive research into the very interesting phenomenon of local museums—kraevedschskyi …