Research
Man on a whale, Manchester Museum, 1898
The Research objectives of the Centre for Museology are:-
- To undertake and promote research into the history, theory and practice of museums, and particularly to foster interdisciplinary and collaborative research.
- To disseminate research outputs as widely as possible, to both academic and professional communities.
- To promote and support research degrees and post-doctoral research in museum studies.
The staff of the Centre undertake a range of research activities themselves and also support colleagues' work within the interdisciplinary field of museum studies. We are interested in developing further opportunities for collaborative research, both within the University and also with the museum profession.
The Centre for Museology is engaged in the study of the museum from a range of disciplinary perspectives, and has close links with the Centre for the Cultural History of War, Centre for the History of Science Technology and Medicine (CHSTM), Centre for the Study of Surrealism and its Legacies, and CRESC (ESRC Centre for Research into Socio-Cultural Change). Staff at the Centre for Museology are also members of CHIMERA, an interdisciplinary research area on cultural heritage, memory. CHIMERA brings together academic staff, postdoctoral research fellows and doctoral students working in various disciplines across the University of Manchester.
Conferences
The Cenre for Museology has organised several national and international symposia and conferences over the years. Some of the latest include:
Museums and Restitution, 8-9 July 2010
Museums and Restitution was a two-day international conference organised by the Centre for Museology and The Manchester Museum. The conference examined the issue of restitution in relation to the changing role and authority of the museum, focussing on new ways in which museums are addressing the subject.
'Art, City, Spectacle: The Manchester Art Treasures Exhibition Revisited', 9-10 November 2007
2007 was the 150th anniversary of the Manchester Art-Treasures Exhibition: the largest temporary art exhibition ever held in Britain. The Exhibition comprised c.16,000 exhibits and attracted over 1,300,000 visitors in just over five months. However, the significance of the Art Treasures Exhibition exceeds its extraordinary dimensions and scale alone: as well as revisiting the Exhibition itself, this conference addressed the effect of the Exhibition on several fronts, including the development of museum display in Britain and abroad, changes in art market supply and demand and the self-image and cultural identity of nineteenth-century Manchester.
Nature Behind Glass: historical and theoretical perspectives on natural history collections, 6-8 September 2007
The conference aimed to promote and communicate inter-disciplinary research on historical, theoretical and museological aspects of natural history museums. For whereas other museum sectors (such as ethnography museums) have been the subject of thriving body of reflexive literature, the collecting and display of natural objects has yet to be so thoroughly theorized. Bringing together a critical mass of scholarship engaged in research in this area, the conference began to develop a theoretical community concerned with 'natural museology'. Papers provided innovative methodological or reflexive insights and were based on original research.
Current Research at the Centre for Museology
- Private Property and 'National Heritage': Art, Tax and the State (Helen Rees Leahy)
- Museum Bodies (Helen Rees Leahy)
- The Lives of Chinese Objects (Louise Tythacott)
- Museums and Restitution (Louise Tythacott and Kostas Arvanitis)
- 'Curators in Residence': Hidden archaeological sites and 'virtual curating' (Kostas Arvanitis)
- Museums and Mobile Media (Kostas Arvanitis)
- Mash-Up Museum Archaeology (Kostas Arvanitis)
- Objects from the Opium Wars and the Boxer Rebellion (Louise Tythacott)
- UniverCity Culture: Mapping Manchester (Kostas Arvanitis)