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.
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Online Collections and Teaching Whiteness at the University of Michigan Museum of Art
April 12, 2019 @ 12:00 pm - 1:00 pm
Date: Friday, April 12
Time: 12:00 pm
Location: UM Museum of Art, Multi-Purpose Room (125)
Presenter: Christopher Mulvey (PhD, Anthropology)
Online Collections and Teaching Whiteness at the University of Michigan Museum of Art
Over the summer of 2018, I worked as an intern with the Education Department at the University of Michigan Museum of Art, creating teaching resources with themes centered on “whiteness” and “masculinities.” Using the online system “The Exchange,” I reviewed UMMA’s collection and generated new Teaching Collections and Resources on aspects of the collection that were relatively underexplored, in addition to leading several tours centered on race, ethnicity, and gender. This work opened questions of access, knowledge production, and the value of underutilized collections. My Brown Bag talk will highlight how museums can begin to loosen their grip on curating collections through the creation and maintenance of systems like The Exchange, which offer chances for both University and broader publics to engage with shaping how images can be put into conversation with one another. In addition, I will discuss curating whiteness and masculinities—subjects that often fall by the wayside in teaching both history and art—in an effort to illustrate how the museum can broadly effect change and work against its colonial history.
