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.
Fall 2015
The Emperor’s New Ethnography: Debates at the Musée africain de Lyon
University of Michigan Museum of Art, First Floor, Multi-Purpose Room 525 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesAbigail Celis (PhD candidate, French Language and Literature) How do you do new ethnography with old tools? Ethnographic museums, in the past two decades, have been dancing a funny limbo. The academic fields that shaped them have abandoned many of the methods and primary...
Gentrifiers or community anchors: are art museums good for urban neighborhood residents?
University of Michigan Museum of Art, First Floor, Multi-Purpose Room 525 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesJustin Meyer (PhD candidate, Urban Planning) My dissertation research examines how urban art museums impact their adjacent neighborhoods to understand when they contribute to gentrification (and the subsequent isolation or displacement of ethnic minorities and poorer households) and when they might help ‘anchor’ or...
The “Calculated Frightfulness” of ISIS: Threats to Middle Eastern Cultural Heritage in Historical Perspective
U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesGlobal Heritage at Risk University of Michigan Museum Studies Program Fall 2015 Lecture Series Speaker: Geoffrey Emberling, Assistant Research Scientist, Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, University of Michigan Co-sponsored by the U-M Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, Center for Middle East and North African Studies and...
Spending Some Time on the Inside: Jackson’s Cell Block Seven Prison Museum
University of Michigan Museum of Art, First Floor, Multi-Purpose Room 525 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesAmy Reimann (Executive Director, Ella Sharp Museum) In 2013, the Ella Sharp Museum of Jackson, Michigan, was approached about developing a plan for a museum at an operating penitentiary dedicated to telling the story of the Michigan Department of Corrections. The Cell Block Seven...
Cultural Heritage in Sites and Museums in India: Challenges and Opportunities
U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesGlobal Heritage at Risk University of Michigan Museum Studies Program Fall 2015 Lecture Series Speaker: Shraddha Bhatawadekar, Nehru-Fulbright Academic and Professional Excellence Fellow, Center for South Asian Studies and Museum Studies Program, University of Michigan Co-sponsored by the U-M Center for South Asian Studies...
To Amphipolis and Back Again: Crisis Management, Heritage Politics and Grassroots Activism as “New Heritage” in Greece
U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesGlobal Heritage at Risk University of Michigan Museum Studies Program Fall 2015 Lecture Series Speaker: Despina Margomenou, Lecturer, Department of Classical Studies, University of Michigan Co-sponsored by the U-M Department of Classical Studies Terrorism. Looting. Financial crisis. Political factionalism. Unregulated development. Neglect. The news...
Translating the Museum: Multicultural Accessibility at the National Museum of Japanese History
University of Michigan Museum of Art, First Floor, Multi-Purpose Room 525 South State Street, Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesEsther Ladkau (PhD, History) The National Museum of Japanese History (known as Rekihaku), founded in 1983, is the only national history museum in Japan with government sponsorship. Its purpose is to represent the whole of the Japanese archipelago’s history and folk cultures. Since its...
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 StatesGlobal 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 StatesAlice 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...
