museum and knowledge politics

Yet another near miss … ‘Transforming Museums’, Seattle, 15-16 May 2008

Our otherwise sensitive antennae seem to be prette insensitive right now — or why else did we miss the deadline for the interdisciplinary conference ‘Transforming Museums: Bridging Theory and Practice’ at the University of Washington, Seattle, 15-16 May? Here’s the brief for the meeting — organized by The Museology Student Committee for Professional Development at the University of Washington: Museums […]

Our otherwise sensitive antennae seem to be prette insensitive right now — or why else did we miss the deadline for the interdisciplinary conference ‘Transforming Museums: Bridging Theory and Practice’ at the University of Washington, Seattle, 15-16 May?
Here’s the brief for the meeting — organized by The Museology Student Committee for Professional Development at the University of Washington:

Museums are institutions steeped in tradition but surrounded by constant change. “Transforming Museums” seeks to find ways that professionals can meet these changes deliberately and thoughtfully instead of being swept along their currents. Building on the overwhelming success of last year’s “Rethinking Museums” conference, we now turn to the task of “Transforming Museums.”

And then they invite museum professionals, students, and university faculty to submit paper abstracts or workshop proposals on things like:
How do we transform museums?
Who is leading these transformations?
What recent and current work shares this aim?
How do we define transformation?
Why are these transformations taking place?
Are there discernible patterns in this change?
Great program! A must for one or two from Medical Museion who could have presented our ideas for changing the medical museum concept. But we missed the deadline — which was last Friday, January 4.
Anyway, we can always visit their website. And polish the antennae for next year’s advertisement.