Museums and Difference (21st Century Studies) - Softcover

. . . fascinating and probing treatments of issues that press on both museum workers and folklorists.October 15, 2008 -- Lee Haring * Brooklyn College (Emeritus) * Museum and Difference is about the role that museums play in shaping the stories that we tell about who we are and how we are different from other people. It is an interesting subject.Jan. 23, 2009 -- Matt Shinn * Museum Practice Magazine *

Museums, modern concepts of culture, and ideas about difference arose together and to this day remain inextricably entwined. Relationships of difference-gender, ethnicity, nationality, race-have become equally important concerns of scholarship in humanities and contemporary museum practice. Museums and Difference presents the perspectives of scholars and museum professionals in tandem, using the concept of difference to reexamine how museums construct themselves, their collections, and their publics. Essays consider a wide range of examples from around the world and from the nineteenth century to the present, including case studies of special exhibitions as well as broad surveys of institutions in Europe, the United States, and Japan.