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.
Inclusion Requires Fracturing
U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesLocation: 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...
Specimen Backlogs in the Age of Digitization: Strategies for Shedding Light on “Dark Data” before They Become Black Holes
Millions of specimens and their associated data are housed in museum collections, but only a small fraction of these are readily accessible through electronic means. These are now being referred to as “dark data” after a term coined in the business/IT community for the...
“History Compels Us to be Daring”: Sites of Conscience in Action Around the World
University of Michigan Museum of Art, First Floor, Multi-Purpose Room 525 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesThe International Coalition of Sites of Conscience was founded in 1999 with the radical idea that historic sites had an obligation to draw a connection between the history of their sites and their contemporary implications. Today, we are more than 200 museums, historic sites,...
Vagaries of Objectivity / Launen der Sachlichkeit
Rackham Graduate School 915 E. Washington Street, Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesThe Museum Studies Program is proud to support a conference co-sponsored by the Departments of German and History of Art. The two-day conference, “Vagaries of Objectivity / Launen der Sachlichkeit” will run from Friday, January 27 to Saturday, January 28. The conference will take...
The Image Reframed: Visions of Instability
The Museum Studies Program is proud to co-sponsor the Department of Romance Languages and Literatures 21st Charles F. Fraker conference. The two-day conference, The Image Reframed: Visions of Instability, will run from Friday, February 10 to Saturday, February 11. The conference will take place in the Michigan...
Visual Culture in India and the Museum
University of Michigan Museum of Art, First Floor, Multi-Purpose Room 525 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesAlison Byrnes, a member of the 2006 MSP cohort, recently returned from seven years teaching in India, where she initiated a new Museum Studies Program. She will discuss museums in India through the lens of visuality. There is a mismatch between the cultural signals...
Endangered Heritage conference
War, climate change, globalization, and economic development pose significant threats to the world’s natural and cultural heritage. Societies around the world share many of the same concerns, even as specific regions, countries, and communities face unique challenges. The symposium seeks to establish a dialogue...
Aspiration/Obligation? Imagining Intellectual Freedom in Museums
Rackham Graduate School 915 E. Washington Street, Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesAspiration/Obligation? Imagining Intellectual Freedom in Museums How Do Museums Respond to Public Challenges to Their Exhibitions? What Would a National “Bill of Rights” for Museum Visitors Look Like? Should Museums Limit Access to Potentially Controversial Materials? Since the 1930s, American libraries have organized their...
Art for Sale? Public Trust, Public Debt: The Detroit Institute of Arts and the City of Detroit Bankruptcy
In the two years since the City of Detroit came out of bankruptcy, it has not been uncommon to read in mainstream media and the blogosphere “how close the city of Detroit came to selling its art collection.” Such was never the case and,...
The Smithsonian Institution and the Making of the American Nonprofit Sector
When Englishman James Smithson left $500,000 to the United States of America to establish the Smithsonian Institution in 1829, he improbably forced the United States Congress to design America's first national benevolent institution. This talk will address how Congress came to a decision about...
