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.

Crisistunity: Re-imagining Historic Sites at the National Trust

U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United States

Global Heritage at Risk University of Michigan Museum Studies Program Fall 2015 Lecture Series Speaker: Katherine Malone-France, Vice President for Historic Sites, National Trust for Historic Preservation Terrorism. Looting. Financial crisis. Political factionalism. Unregulated development. Neglect. The news is full of ongoing threats to...

The God behind the Marble: Transcending the Object in the German Museum of Art

University of Michigan Museum of Art, First Floor, Multi-Purpose Room 525 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI, United States

Alice Goff (PhD post-doc, Michigan Society of Fellows) This presentation explores the relationship between aesthetic philosophy and art objects in public museums of art in German states in the first half of the nineteenth century. It argues that during this revolutionary period a conflict...

Negotiating Slavery? The Politics of Memory and the Transformations of a State Museum in Colombia

University of Michigan Museum of Art, First Floor, Multi-Purpose Room 525 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI, United States

In a context of controversy surrounding the peace talks between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrilla movement, the country’s museums are currently experiencing deep transformations. State museums in particular face the challenge of becoming more democratic and inclusive institutions even as they remain...

Supporting Youth through Environmental Education: Teaching, Learning, and Design at the Matthaei Botanical Gardens

University of Michigan Museum of Art, First Floor, Multi-Purpose Room 525 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI, United States

Efforts to enhance the scientific capacity of youth often target schools and focus on reforming the existing science curriculum. An often overlooked and underestimated venue for science teaching, learning, and design are out-of-school settings. Everyday experiences in these settings can support science learning for...

What if? Demand the Impossible. On Museums and the Struggle for Social Justice

U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United States

Location:  University of Michigan Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium What if museums were to acknowledge their complicity with systemic forms of oppression, and commit to a reparations movement as part of a process of truth and reconciliation? What if museum and exhibition programs...

Access and the Archive: The Role of Documents Projects in a Digital Age

University of Michigan Museum of Art, First Floor, Multi-Purpose Room 525 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI, United States

This brown bag will examine my practicum experience working with the Documents Project at the International Center for Art of the Americas (ICAA) at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The ICAA is the research institute arm of the Latin American Art Curatorial Department,...

Inclusion Requires Fracturing

U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United States

Location:  University of Michigan Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium As museums strive to serve broad, ever-diversifying publics, it is no longer possible to deny the ways museums mirror and reinforce racial, cultural, and class inequities of the broader society. Skillful racial and cultural...

Growing Protocols: Documenting the Collaborative Process within the Heritage Seeds for Sustainable Lifeways Project

U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United States

Presentation by Elspeth Geiger, PhD candidate, Anthropology Friday, September 29 from 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm, UM Museum of Art auditorium   Growing Protocols: Documenting the Collaborative Process within the Heritage Seeds for Sustainable Lifeways Project Collaboration between museums and Native American communities has...

Learning from History at The Henry Ford – Two Perspectives

Online via Zoom

Please join us for a Museums at Noon conversation! Title:  Learning from History at The Henry Ford - Two Perspectives Date:  Friday, October 9 Time:  12:00 pm Location:  Online via Zoom (Meeting ID: 930 4573 8463 / Passcode 103356) Presenters: Bradley L. Taylor (Associate...