Public programs facilitate dialogue between academics and professionals, informing scholarship and strengthening practice.
Multiple day conferences, year-long colloquia, individual lectures, “conversations” between individuals, hands-on workshops, and Museums at Noon talks featuring our graduate students all contribute to the remarkable richness of MSP offerings.
Video recordings of some MSP lectures are archived for viewing in our Media Gallery.
- This event has passed.
Museums as Sites of Healing: Empathy, Repair, and Critical Reflection
December 7, 2018 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
What are the ethical responsibilities of university museums when our local communities face profound crises and occasions of injustice? How might we foster compassion and promote conversations that can build enduring community bonds, while honoring our academic commitments to promoting critical analysis and stewardship of our scientific and cultural collections?
Michigan State University Museum Director Mark Auslander explores several instances, in which museums have grappled with moral challenges close to home, including facing up to legacies of slavery on a college campuses and the threatened mass eviction of a low-income neighborhood. His primary case study is the MSU Museum’s current partnership with the survivors of the horrific sexual abuse crisis at MSU, in which the museum has committed to collecting material culture and narratives associated with the crisis and co-curating with survivors and parents an exhibition on the scandal, its ramifications, and struggles for institutional transformation. What lessons have been learned and how might we, together, chart productive pathways forward?
Presented by Mark Auslander – Director, MSU Museum and Associate Professor of Anthropology and History, Michigan State University
December 7 at 12:00 pm, UM Museum of Art Multi-Purpose Room
co-sponsored by the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies
photography credit Pearl Yee Wong
