Department of History
Carleton University
HIST 5705f: Museums, National Identity and Public Memory
Fall Term 2014-2015
Prof: Dr David Dean
444PA, x2822
david_dean@carleton.ca
Office hours: Wednesdays 3-4 or as arranged
Tuesdays 11:35-2:25
433PA (History Lounge, and museums)
Course Information
Introduction
This course examines how national museums construct narratives and histories through
processes of collection, preservation and exhibition. We will explore the ways in which such
institutions shape public memory and national identity, engage with some of the key debates
surrounding ideas of nationhood, identity, historical narratives, cultural politics, and memory.
We will also be considering the wider spaces in which national museums are situated both in
culture, space and time and the circumstances in which their constructed narratives and histories
have been challenged, contested and negotiated.
While inevitably we will be spending much time thinking and discussing the themes of the
course in relation to Canada’s national museums, you will be challenged by wider frames of
reference through an engagement with other national experiences, theoretical perspectives and
methodological questions.
At the heart of the course this year will be "hands on" experience working within a national
museum. You'll be part of a small team researching and creating an exhibit proposal for the
Canadian Museum of History or the Canadian Museum of Science and
Technology. The team will be working within the museum setting with museum professionals.
You will learn about the multiple moving parts (design, interpretation, research and
architecture) of the exhibit development and process and will be asked to work creatively within
an existing narrative and museological framework rather as if you had succeeded in securing
contract work at the museum for a specific project.
Goals
My aims in teaching this course are:
 to give you an opportunity to understand the history of museums and the ways in which
their place in society has evolved over time
 to give you hands-on experience of working in a museum
 to give you experience of team-work and collaboration
 to give you the opportunity to become familiar with some of the practical,
methodological and theoretical issues facing museums through key academic studies
from various disciplines and through engaging with a wide range of case-studies

to invite you to think through the relationship between academic research and practical
experience in a museum setting
Assessment
Seminar Participation (20%):
You are expected to attend every class and participate fully in discussion and also to be an
effective member of your project team. For the seminar this means you must come having not
only read the readings, but having made the time to think about them, and with a willingness to
engage in discussion. If you participate regularly you will receive an A for 10% of your final
grade. In addition I’ll be asking each of you to work with another student (or more depending
on the class size) with the view to facilitating our discussion of a particular week's readings.
You'll be offering an informal 15-minute informal commentary on the readings for the class,
outlining some of the main ideas of the readings, drawing attention to areas you found to be
interesting, significant or problematic, and raising some questions for discussion. This will be
assessed by me and constitute 10% of your final grade.
Exhibition Proposal (40%):
This course will give you a unique opportunity to work in a small team along with a curator and
other staff at a national museum. You will be submitting a written report to the museum and
also offering a short presentation to staff at the end of the course. The assessment will be mine,
although I will also be consulting with museum staff and incorporating an element of selfevaluation and team-evaluation in my assessment.
Take-Home Examination: A Final Reflection Paper (40%):
You must submit a take-home examination in the form of a reflection paper due therefore on
Monday 22 December. The paper must be between 12 and 15 pages in length, double-spaced.
This will give you the opportunity to reflect on our readings and discussions in light of your
hands on experience of teamwork and working with museum professionals on your exhibition
proposal.
Tentative Course Schedule:
9 September
Introductory Meeting and Visit from curators from Canadian Science and
Technology Museum
16 September
Meeting and Tour: Canadian Museum of History
23 September
What is a Museum? Interpreting National Museums
30 September
Museum Resources Training Session
7 October
Museums and Globalization
14 October
Museums in the History Wars
21 October
Imagining and Narrating Nationhood and Identity in South Africa
(with guest Professor Natasha Erlank, University of Johannesburg)
28 October
Fall Break
4 November
Project Meetings
11 November
Performing National Histories: Objects, Spaces, Performances
18 November
25 November
2 and 8 December
Beyond Representation: Museums as Sites of Social Justice
Brainstorming: Exhibition Strategies
Project Presentations
Readings (subject to change):
Note all readings are either on reserve in the main library, available online through the library
catalogue or online open access.
Readings for 23 September: What is a Museum? Interpreting National Museums:
Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum. History, Theory, Politics (Routledge, 1995),
chapters 1-3 and then quickly sample the case studies that follow (chapters 4, 5, 8, 9).
Tony Bennett, Pasts Beyond Memory. Evolution, Museums, Colonialism (Routledge, 2004),
chapters 1-3. Then choose a case study to quickly sample: Britain (ch. 4), USA (ch. 5) or
Australia (ch. 6).
Flora Edouwaye S. Kaplan, 'Making and Remaking National Identities'; Elizabeth Crooke,
'Museums and Community'; and Rosmarie Beier-de Haan, 'Re-staging Histories and
Identities' all in Sharon Macdonald (ed.), A Companion to Museum Studies (Oxford: WileyBlackwell, 2011) [chapters 10-12, pp. 152-97.
If you are interested in Canadian museums:
James Clifford, 'Four Northwest Coast Museums: Travel Reflections' and 'Museums as
Contact Zones' in Routes: Travel and Translation in the late Twentieth Century (Cambridge,
Mass. and New York: Harvard University Press, 1997).
Robyn Gillam, Hall of Mirrors (Banff: The Banff Centre Press, 2001)
Susan Ashley, 'State Authority and the Public Sphere: Ideas on the Changing Role of the
Museum as a Canadian Social Institution', in Museum & Society 3.1 (March, 2005).
Ruth B. Phillips, Toward the Indigenization of Canadian Museums (Montreal and Kingston:
McGill-Queens University Press, 2012).
Readings for 7 October: Museums and Globalization
Ivan Carp (et al eds), Museum Frictions: Public Cultures/Global Transformations (London and
New York: Routledge, 2007).
Readings for 14 October: Museums in the History Wars
Vera L. Zomberg, 'Museums as Contested Sites of remembrance: The Enola Gay Affair' from
Sharon Madonald and Gordon Fyfe (eds), Theorizing Museums (Oxford: Blackwell, 1996 – pp.
69-82).
David Dean and Peter E. Rider, ‘Museums, Nation and Political History in the Australian
National Museum and the Canadian Museum of Civilization’ in Museum & Society, 3.1 (2005)
online open access
David Dean, ‘Museums as conflict zones: the Canadian War Museum and Bomber Command’,
Museum and Society, 7.1 (2009) online open access
Shelley Ruth Butler, Contested Representations: Revisiting Into the Heart of Africa
(Peterborough, Ontario: Broadview, 2008). The catalogue of this exhibition is also on
reserve: Jeanne Cannizzo, Into the Heart of Africa (Toronto: ROM, 1989)
Readings for 21 October: Imagining and Narrating Nationhood and Identity in South
Africa (with guest Professor Natasha Erlank, University of Johannesburg)
David Fleming, ‘Positioning the Museum for Social Inclusion’ in Richard Sandell (ed),
Museums, Society, Inequality (Oxford and New York: Routledge, 2002), ch. 16, pp. 213-24.
Khwezi ka Mpumlawana et. al, ‘Inclusion and the power of representation: South African
museums and the cultural politics of social transformation’ in Sandell, Museums, Society,
Inequality, ch. 18, pp. 244-61.
Nic Coetzer, "Narrative Space: three post-apartheid museums reconsidered" in Suzanne
Macleod's collection Museum Making: narratives, architectures, exhibitions (London and New
York: Routledge, 2012 – ch. 6, pp. 63-73).
Ciraj Rassool's "Community Museums, Memory Politics, and Social Transformation in South
Africa: Histories, Possibilities, and Limits" in Ivan Carp (et al eds), Museum Frictions: Public
Cultures/Global Transformations (London and New York: Routledge, 2007).
If you have time please also read one of the other two essays on South Africa in Museum
Frictions: Leslie Witz's "Transforming Museums on Post-apartheid Tourist Routes or David
Bunn's "The Museum Outdoors: Heritage, Cattle, and Permeable Borders in the Southwestern
Kruger National Park".
Readings for 11 November: Performing National Histories: Objects, Spaces,
Performances
Susan Pierce, Museums, Objects, and Collections: A Cultural History (Washington:
Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992), "Meaning in History" (chapter 9 pp. 192-209),
"Conclusion: Objects Make History" (pp. 224-7 of chapter 10, "Objects in Action") and
"Problems of Power" (chapter 11, pp. 228-255).
Matthias Ekman, "Architecture for the Nation's Memory. History, art, and the halls of
Norway's National Gallery" in Suzanne Macleod's collection Museum Making: narratives,
architectures, exhibitions (London and New York: Routledge, 2012 – ch. 13, pp. 144-56)
Suzanne Macleod, "Rethinking museum architecture: towards a site-specific history of
production and use", in Suzanne MacLeod (ed.), Reshaping museum space: architecture,
design, exhibitions (New York and London: Routledge, 2005 – pp. 9-25)
Scott Magelssen, 'Making History in the Second Person: Post-touristic Considerations for
Living Historical Interpretation', Theatre Journal 58 (2006) 291–312
Readings for 18 November: Beyond Representation: Museums as Sites of Inclusion and
Social Justice
Ruth J. Abram, "Harnessing the Power of History" in Richard Sandell (ed), Museums, Society,
Inequality (New York and London: Routledge, 2002 - ch. 9, pp. 125-41)
David Fleming, "Positioning the Museum for Social Inclusion" in Sandell (2002, ch. 16, 213-24)
Fiona Cameron, "Beyond Surface Representations: Museums, ‘Edgy’ Topics, Civic
Responsibilities and Modes of Engagement", Open Museum Journal 8 (2006)
Eithne Nightgale and Richard Sandell, "Introduction" in Richard Sandell and Eithne
Nightingale (eds), Museums, Equality, and Social Justice (New York and London: Routledge,
2012).
Then choose one case study that interests you from Sandell (ed), Museums, Society, Inequality
or from Sandell and Nightingale (eds), Museums, Equality, and Social Justice [most chapters
offer a case study even if not explicitly stated in the title]. If you'd like to look at Canadian case
studies then choose something from David Dean (guest ed.), Museums as Sites for Historical
Understanding, Peace, and Social Justice: Views From Canada, a special issue of Peace and
Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology 19:4 (November 2013) i.e. Ibhawoh (pp. 338-48), those
on CMHR proposals (pp. 349-98), Strauss (pp. 399-407) or Brady (pp. 408-20).