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Museum Studies
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 …

Museum Studies

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

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 …
Why We Argue February 9, 2023

Seeing Truth in the Archives

A Conversation about the AMNH and What Gets Saved with Joel Sweimler

Joel Sweimler

Hosted by Alexis Boylan
Joel Sweimler, Exhibition Specialist at the American Museum of Natural History, talks about his career at the museum, working on Seeing Truth, and what his favorite object in the collection …
Education February 7, 2023

Museums as Agents of Change

A Guide to Becoming a Changemaker

Mike Murawski

Hosted by Callie Smith
Museums everywhere have the potential to serve as agents of change—bringing people together, contributing to local communities, and changing people’s lives. So how can we, as individuals, radically expand the …
Why We Argue January 26, 2023

Seeing Truth in Museums

A Conversation about the Legacy and Future of Museums with Chris Newell

Chris Newell

Hosted by Alexis Boylan
Feeling down about museums? We have so many reasons to, but Chris Newell, Tribal Community Member-in-Residence at UConn and Director of Education at the Akomawt Educational Initiative, gives a dose …
Scholarly Communication January 14, 2023

Digital Codicology

Medieval Books and Modern Labor

Bridget Whearty

Hosted by Jen Hoyer
Medieval manuscripts are our shared inheritance, and today they are more accessible than ever—thanks to digital copies online. Yet for all that widespread digitization has fundamentally transformed how we connect …
History of Science December 15, 2022

Bone Rooms

From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums

Samuel J. Redman

Hosted by Victor Monnin
In Bone Rooms: From Scientific Racism to Human Prehistory in Museums (Harvard University Press, 2022 for paperback edition), Samuel J. Redman, Associate Professor of History at the University of Massachusetts, uncovers …
Scholarly Communication December 11, 2022

The Remaking of Archival Values

Victoria Hoyle

Hosted by Jen Hoyer
The Remaking of Archival Values by Victoria Hoyle (Routledge, October 2022) posits that archival theory and practice are fields in flux, and that recent critical archival discourse that addresses neoliberalism …
Art December 6, 2022

Global Objects

Toward a Connected Art History

Edward S. Cooke

Hosted by Nushelle de Silva
A bold reorientation of art history that bridges the divide between fine art and material culture through an examination of objects and their uses art history is often viewed through …
East Asian Studies December 2, 2022

Fragile Cargo

The World War II Race to Save the Treasures of China's Forbidden City

Adam Brookes

Hosted by Ed Pulford
The two parallel Palace Museums in Beijing and Taiwan, and their separate collections of thousands of precious artworks and artifacts from imperial times, reflects a key moment in the 1940s …
Biography November 11, 2022

Egypt's Golden Couple

When Akhenaten and Nefertiti Were Gods on Earth

John Darnell and Colleen Darnell

Hosted by Caleb Zakarin
Two celebrated Egyptologists bring to vivid life the intriguing and controversial reign of King Tut's parents. Akhenaten has been the subject of radically different, even contradictory, biographies. The king has …
Scholarly Communication November 11, 2022

Archives of Times Past

Conversations about South Africa’s Deep History

Cynthia Kros, John Wright, Mbongiseni Buthelezi, and Helen Ludlow

Hosted by Jen Hoyer
Archives of Times Past: Conversations about South Africa’s Deep History (Wits University Press, 2022) is an exploration of particular sources of evidence on southern Africa’s early history. It gathers recent ideas …
On Religion November 9, 2022

On the History of Muslim Books in Catholic Libraries

A Discussion with N. A. Mansour

N. A. Mansour

Hosted by Gregory Soden
N.A. Mansour is a historian and a PhD candidate at Princeton University’s Department of Near Eastern Studies, where she is writing a dissertation on the transition between manuscript and print …
General History October 20, 2022

What the Ermine Saw

The Extraordinary Journey of Leonardo Da Vinci's Most Mysterious Portrait

Eden Collinsworth

Hosted by Nathan Moore
In the tradition of The Lady in Gold and The Hare with Amber Eyes, the remarkable history behind one of the world's most beloved paintings, Leonardo da Vinci's Lady with …
Exchanges: A Cambridge UP Podcast October 13, 2022

Does Scripture Speak for Itself?

The Museum of the Bible and the Politics of Interpretation

Jill Hicks-Keeton and Cavan W. Concannon

Hosted by Mark Klobas
Is the Bible the unembellished Word of God or the product of human agency? There are different answers to that question. And they lie at the heart of this book's …
American Studies October 12, 2022

The Spirit of Colonial Williamsburg

Ghosts and Interpreting the Recreated Past

Alena Pirok

Hosted by Nathan Moore
On any given night, hundreds of guests walk the darkened streets of Colonial Williamsburg looking for ghosts. Since the early 2000s, both the museum and private companies have facilitated these …
Art October 4, 2022

The Metabolic Museum

Clementine Deliss

Hosted by Holiday Powers
In The Metabolic Museum (Hatje Cantz, 2020), Clémentine Deliss, a curator, researcher, and former director of the Frankfurt Weltkulturen Museum, explores possible functions for anthropological museums in a postcolonial culture …
In Conversation: An OUP Podcast October 3, 2022

Tutankhamun and the Tomb That Changed the World

Bob Brier

Hosted by Mark Klobas
It is often thought that the story of Tutankhamun ended when the thousands of items discovered by Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon were transported to the Egyptian Museum in Cairo …
Canadian Studies September 26, 2022

Canadian History through the Eyes of the Canadian Canoe Museum

A Discussion with Jeremy Ward

Jeremy Ward

Hosted by Greg Marchildon
Greg Marchildon interviews Jeremy Ward, the curator of the Canadian Canoe Museum in Peterborough, Ontario, about the role of the canoe in the history of the portion of North America …