Museums, Objects and Collections: A Cultural Study (Leicester Museum Studies) - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0718513320 ISBN 13: 9780718513320

Synopsis

This book examines the historical context of museums, their collections, and the objects that form them. Susan M. Pearce probes the psychological and social reasons that people collect and identifies three modes of collecting: collecting as souvenirs, as fetishes, and as systematic assemblages. She considers how museum professionals set policies of collection management; acquire, study, and exhibit objects; and make meaning of the objects in their care. Pearce also explores the ideological relationship between museums and their collections and the intellectual and social relationships of museums to the public.

About this title

Review

"Dense and rewarding. Through this study the author intends to explore the philosophies and cultural traditions which underlie museums, their collections, and the objects which make them up, and to see how meaning is created amongst them."--Arlis-Newssheet

"Profoundly rewarding . . . [Museums, Objects, and Collections] offers one of the most extensive and penetrating analyses of museums you are likely to find anywhere."--Curator

Synopsis

Museums hold the collected objects that have come to us from the past, and which now constitute one of the most important ways in which we can understand that past. Museums are social phenomena characteristic of the modernist Western tradition, and their collections of both human and natural history material are a significant part of how that tradition has shaped itself.

Edition details

• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0718513320
• ISBN 13: 9780718513320
• Binding: Hardcover