Semester:
Offered:
James Hanken (Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology)
First-Year Seminar 41U 4 credits
The recent Covid‐19 pandemic extracted a huge toll on museums, on the one hand causing great harm and on the other hand forcing long‐overdue changes that capitalize on new opportunities. This seminar will trace the history of museums from their beginnings centuries ago as personal collections maintained by private (wealthy) individuals to the modern institutions of today. What are museums? Where did they come from? What exactly do they do, and why? Do they have a future? We will consider not only the objects maintained in museums and their conservation, but also the role of museums in contemporary society, financial considerations associated with their successful operation, their dual—and sometimes conflicting—functions of scholarly research and public display, the mechanics and psychology of exhibit design, and legal and ethical issues of collecting and acquisition. The seminar’s focus will range from large art, archaeological and natural history museums to smaller and more specialized institutions that feature particular cultural, scientific, artistic and engineering artifacts.
Weekly class meetings will include both discussion sessions and field trips to museums and libraries at Harvard. During these trips we will view public exhibits and gain access to “behind‐the‐scenes” collections and scholar/staff work areas that the public rarely sees. One weekend‐day optional field trip to a museum outside Boston may be scheduled, depending on student interest.