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.
U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium
CANCELLED – Experiment|Experience: Campus Art Museums in the 21st Century
U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesPlease join us for a Museums Studies panel discussion! Experiment|Experience: Campus Art Museums in the 21st Century Panelists: Christina Olsen - Director, Museum of Art, University of Michigan Maurita Poole - Director, Newcomb Art Museum, Tulane University Anne Goodyear - Director, Museum of Art, Bowdoin...
10 Questions for Henry Ford
U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United States10 Questions for Henry Ford is a documentary art film that examines the controversial life and legacy of the world’s most famous industrialist. A carefully researched combination of historical fact and poetic imagining, the film draws on newspaper interviews, archival film, oral histories, and Henry...
What’s the Object of this Museum? Everyday Resistance at the National Public Housing Museum
U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesPlease join us for a presentation by this year's Museum Studies Program visiting scholar, Lisa Yun Lee, Executive Director, National Public Housing Museum (Chicago) Worker cooperatives to build a solidarity economy, contemporary art that grapples with history and unleashes radical imaginations about our collective futures, everyday...
Listening to Object Witnesses: Decolonizing Research in Museum Collections
U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesPresentation by Dr. Margaret M. Bruchac How do Indigenous objects in museum collections speak to those who collect, curate, observe, and claim them? The observable materials and patterns of construction obviously reflect particular ecosystems, cultures, and technologies, but do these objects also retain memories...
“The Unvarnished Truth”: Reframing the National Narrative at the National Museum of African American History and Culture
U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesPresentation by William S. Pretzer, Senior Curator of History, Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture The Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture opened on the National Mall in Washington, DC, in September 2016. More than six million individuals have visited...
A Swift Death and Steady Resurrection: Salvage Anthropology and U.S. Museums
U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesPresentation by Samuel J. Redman What should museums do with stolen artifacts? Should the response be similar with stolen knowledge? This talk explores the history and legacy of salvage anthropology as it relates to museums in the United States. Salvage anthropology was a movement...
Using Racist Memorabilia to Teach Tolerance and Promote Social Justice: the Case of the Jim Crow Museum
U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesThe Jim Crow Museum is the nation’s largest publicly accessible collection of racist artifacts. Located on the campus of Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Michigan, the museum houses more than 12,000 objects—primarily, but not exclusively, segregation era artifacts and everyday anti-black caricatured objects....
Expansive Realities: A Longer History of the “Virtual” in Art, Architecture, and Visual Culture
U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesKeynote speaker: Kristina Kleutghen, David. W. Mesker Associate Professor of Art History and Archaeology, Chinese Art and Architecture, Washington University in St. Louis The History of Art Department at the University of Michigan presents graduate student presentations for its biannual Graduate Symposium, Expansive Realities:...
Museums of the Past into the Future: The Oriental Institute and the Kelsey Museum
U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesA conversation between: Chris Woods, Director, Oriental Institute, University of Chicago Terry G. Wilfong, Director, Kelsey Museum of Archaeology, U-M The Oriental Institute Museum at the University of Chicago and the Kelsey Museum of Archaeology at the University of Michigan share similar backgrounds...
Time to Evolve: The Histories and Futures of Two University Natural History Museums
U-M Museum of Art, Helmut Stern Auditorium 525 S. State St., Ann Arbor, MI, United StatesA conversation between: Julie Stein - Executive Director, Burke Museum of Natural History and Culture, University of Washington Amy Harris - Director, Museum of Natural History, U-M University natural history collections were central to the scientific enterprise in the 19th century. Today, these collections...
