Museums, Discourse and Power Call for Papers MIDAS – issue 6
Pergamon Museum, Berlin © Franz Fernando, 2012
MIDAS – Museum Interdisciplinary Studies is launching a call for papers for issue 6 for publication in Autumn 2015. This issue will include a thematic dossier under the theme “Museums, Discourse and Power” with Paulo Simões Rodrigues (University of Évora, Portugal), and Laurajane Smith (Australian National University) as guest editors.
All accepted articles will undergo a double peer-review. Articles should not exceed 6 000 words (without bibliography) or ca. 40 000 characters (with spaces). It must follow the classical structure of an academic paper. Articles should include abstract, keywords and the biography of the author(s). More information at: http://midas.revues.org/390?lang=en
Deadline: March 31st, 2015. Send your text to: [email protected]
Museums, Discourse and Power
Throughout their History, museums have established discourses about the cultural significance of their collections through the selection, reception, classification, cataloguing, and exhibition of objects. These discourses were - and still are - determinant for the creation of collective memories as well as for establishing the ways in which societies deal with the past in the present. They also contribute actively to shape social, moral, political and ideological values. By doing so, museums were and are not only institutions of power but also instruments of power. With the theme “Museums, Discourse and Power”, we intend to gather and publish a group of articles about the relation between Museums and Power, and about the relevance of that relation in the past as well as for contemporary societies.
Themes
Priority will be given to articles, which approach the theme according to the following topics:
- Museums and Globalization; - Museums and Post-Colonialism; - Museums and National Identities; - Museums and Immigrations, Emigrations and Migrations; - Museums and Cultural and Heritage Politics; - Museums and Propaganda; - Museums and Education; - Museums and their Communities; - Museums from the Point of View of their Users (includes visitor studies, community, critiques, etc.); - Museums, Art and Historiography; - Museums, Art and Gender; - Museums and Patronage; - Museums and Communication; - Museums and Technology.
Brief CVs of guest editors:
Paulo Simões Rodrigues has a PhD in Art History by the University of Évora (Portugal) and a Master in Art History by New University of Lisbon. Integrated Researcher of the Centre for the History of Art and Artistic Research (CHAIA) of the University of Évora, member of the Centre HERCULES – Cultural Heritage, Studies and Conservation, and Assistant Professor of the History department of the same university. At the present time is director of CHAIA, of the Museology master and assistant director of the Art History PhD course. Main scientific research areas: Art History and Art Theory of the 19th and 20th centuries, Art Historiography, History of Architecture and Urbanism (19th and 20th centuries), Heritage History and Theory. Current research projects: City and Spectacle: a vision of pre-earthquake Lisbon (a virtual recreation, with Second Life Technology, of the city of Lisbon destroyed by the 1755 earthquake; Connecting Cities, online platform dedicated to the History Architecture and Urbanism (CHAIA).
Laurajane Smith is professor and head of the Centre of Heritage and Museum Studies, School of Archaeology and Anthropology, the Australian National University. She previously held positions at the University of York, UK, the University of New South Wales, Sydney, Charles Sturt University, Albury-Wodonga, Australia. Her research interests include understanding heritage as a performative process. She has authored Uses of Heritage (2006) and Archaeological Theory and the Politics of Cultural Heritage (2004), and co-authored Heritage, Communities and Archaeology (2009, with Emma Waterton). Her edited books include Heritage, Labour and the Working Classes (2011, with Paul A. Shackel and Gary Campbell), Representing Enslavement and Abolition in Museums (2011, with G. Cubitt, R. Wilson and K. Fouseki), and Intangible Heritage (2009, with Natsuko Akagawa), all with Routledge. She is editor of the International Journal of Heritage Studies and co-general editor (with William Logan) of the Routledge Series Key Issues in Cultural Heritage.