Museum Studies

Museum Studies

episodes

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

Sadiah Qureshi, "Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction" (Penguin, 2025)

July 4, 2026

Vanished

Sadiah Qureshi
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Anyone alive today is among a tiny fraction of the once living: over 90% of species that ever existed are now extinct. How did we come to think of…

Cleo Nisse, "Venetian Canvas and the Transformation of Painting" (Princeton UP, 2026)

June 26, 2026

Venetian Canvas and the Transformation of Painting

Cleo Nisse
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Between the fifteenth and early seventeenth centuries, European painting underwent a profound transformation as artists increasingly painted on …

Where Harlem Rests at the Woodlawn Cemetery

June 23, 2026

Where Harlem Rests at the Woodlawn Cemetery

Eric K. Washington (Woodlawn Cemetery & Conservancy)
Hosted by Sullivan Summer

A cemetery as open-air museum? Historian and award-winning author of Boss of the Grips: The Life of James H. Williams and the Red Caps of Grand Centra…

172 David Cunningham on Contesting Confederate Monuments (JP)

June 4, 2026

172 David Cunningham on Contesting Confederate Monuments (JP)

David Cunningham joins John to speak about his pathbreaking article about visiting each of the 113 communities that removed or relocated Confederate s…

Homes of the Past

June 1, 2026

Homes of the Past

Jeffrey Shandler
Hosted by YIVO Institute

In 1940s New York, immigrant Jewish scholars sought to build a museum to commemorate their lost worlds and people. Among the Jews who arrived in the U…

Kanika Singh, "The Story of a Sikh Museum: Heritage, Politics, Popular Culture" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

May 27, 2026

The Story of a Sikh Museum

Kanika Singh
Hosted by Harleen Kaur

The Story of a Sikh Museum: Heritage, Politics, Popular Culture, published by Cambridge University Press in July 2025, is a pioneering study on Sikh m…

Kristin LaFollette, "Rehumanizing People of the Past: Bioarchaeology, Medical Museums and Archives, and the Human Remains Trade" (SUNY Press, 2026)

May 20, 2026

Rehumanizing People of the Past

Kristin LaFollette
Hosted by Victoria Lupascu

Rehumanizing People of the Past: Bioarchaeology, Medical Museums and Archives, and the Human Remains Trade (SUNY Press, 2026) argues that much of the …

Angela I. Fritz, "AI and Digital Leadership: Transforming Libraries, Archives, and Museums for the Future" (Bloomsbury, 2026)

May 15, 2026

AI and Digital Leadership

Angela I. Fritz
Hosted by Michael LaMagna

AI and Digital Leadership: Transforming Libraries, Archives, and Museums for the Future (Bloomsbury, 2026) explores how galleries, libraries, archives…

Es-pranza Humphrey, "Act Black: Posters from Black American Stage & Screen" (Poster House Museum, 2026)

May 12, 2026

Act Black

Es-pranza Humphrey
Hosted by Sullivan Summer

Starting in the 1880s, Black performers, and those invested in telling stories centering Black people, attempted to counter the dehumanizing and harmf…

Brenda Boyle, "American War Stories" (Rutgers UP, 2021)

May 10, 2026

American War Stories

Brenda M. Boyle
Hosted by John Armenta

In American War Stories (Rutgers UP, 2021) Brenda Boyle examines how the story of war is told in the Unites States and how these stories of war work t…

Jeremy Harding's Analogue Africa: Notes on the Anti-Colonial Imagination

May 5, 2026

Analogue Africa

Jeremy Harding
Hosted by Leonard Benardo

Jeremy Harding has long been one of the premier essayists and journalists of our day. Elegant, committed and free of cant, Harding's writing has often…

Beth Derderian, "Art Capital: Museum Politics and the Making of the Louvre Abu Dhabi" (Stanford UP, 2026)

April 3, 2026

Art Capital

Beth Derderian
Hosted by Tugrul Mende

Museums often served nationalist and imperialist interests in the past, but the primary force in the 21st century is the market. Museum franchising—ex…

Shalini Amerasinghe Ganendra, "Veins of Influence: Colonial Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in Early Photographs and Collections" (Neptune Publications, 2023)

March 27, 2026

Veins of Influence

Shalini Amerasinghe Ganendra
Hosted by Stephen Murphy

Veins of Influence: Colonial Sri Lanka (Ceylon) in Early Photographs and Collections by Shalini Amerasinghe Ganendra (Neptune Publications, 2023) is a…

Decolonising Colonial Collections: Repatriation and Cultural Competence in Museums with guest Marika Duczynski

March 26, 2026

Decolonising Colonial Collections

Marika Duczynski

The Cultural Competence Collective welcomes Marika Duczynski onto the podcast to discuss cultural competence, decolonial practices, and community-led…

Georgios Boudalis, "On the Edge: Endbands in the Bookbinding Traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean" (Legacy Press, 2022)

March 15, 2026

On the Edge

Georgios Boudalis
Hosted by Lauren Fonto

On the Edge: Endbands in the Bookbinding Traditions of the Eastern Mediterranean by Dr Giorgios Boudalis (Legacy Press, 2022). The term endbands desig…

Margaret S. Graves, "Invisible Hands: Fabrication, Forgery, and the Art of Islamic Ceramics" (Princeton UP, 2026)

February 27, 2026

Invisible Hands

Margaret S. Graves
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

In the heyday of Islamic art collecting around the turn of the twentieth century, thousands of premodern ceramic objects circulated on the internation…

“You Sound So Australian”: From Being Read to Rewriting the Room with guest Zindzi Okenyo

February 6, 2026

“You Sound So Australian”

The National Centre for Cultural Competence

Welcome to the first episode of The Cultural Competence Collective podcast! For our first episode, we are joined by the multi-talented actress, musici…

Itohan I. Osayimwese, "Africa's Buildings: Architecture and the Displacement of Cultural Heritage" (Princeton UP, 2025)

February 3, 2026

Africa's Buildings

Itohan I. Osayimwese
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

Between the nineteenth century and today, colonial officials, collectors, and anthropologists dismembered African buildings and dispersed their parts …

Melissa Adler, "Peculiar Satisfaction: Thomas Jefferson and the Mastery of Subjects" (Fordham UP, 2025)

January 27, 2026

Peculiar Satisfaction

Melissa Adler
Hosted by Jen Hoyer

As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, Peculiar Satisfaction: Thomas Jefferson and the Mastery of S…

Donna Stein, "The Empress and I: How an Ancient Empire Collected, Rejected and Rediscovered Modern Art" (Skira, 2020)

January 26, 2026

The Empress and I

Donna Stein

In the 1970s, American curator Donna Stein served as an art advisor to Empress Farah Diba Pahlavi, the Shahbanu of Iran. Together, Stein and Pahlavi g…