Research seminars and conferences in ICCHS
ICCHS promotes the development of a dynamic research environment and supports a rich diversity of postgraduate and doctoral research activities in a variety of topics in museum, gallery and heritage studies. An evolving interdisciplinary programme of research seminars and conferences informs and contextualises research. These also offer the opportunity to doctoral researchers and academics to exchange ideas and engage in conversation across disciplines with fellow staff and students, scholars and practitioners.
Research Seminar series 2009-10
Room 1.9, 1st floor, Bruce Building
16:00-17:00 (followed by refreshments)
For further information about the ICCHS seminar series please contact Aron Mazel
Next seminar: Thursday 25 February 2010, John Pendlebury, School of Architecture Planning and Landscape, Newcastle University
All welcome!
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Thursday 24 September 2009
Dr Naomi Standen
Senior Lecturer in Chinese History
School of Historical Studies, Newcastle University
Difficult histories: changing presentations of the Liao dynasty (907-1125) in PRC provincial and capital museums over two decades
Museums are often held to be about national identity, and this has certainly been true in China's national museums. Regional museums, however, can demonstrate bolder approaches. This paper examines the portrayal of the Liao dynasty (907-1125) in museums in north and northeast China, in order to compare the museums' role in the national project as seen in 1984-91 and 2007-8. We find that interpretations of the Liao have diverged along different paths, so that some museums seem to be expressing a sense of regional identity. What this implies for the future of China's national project remains to be seen.
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Thursday 5 November 2009
Dr Gaynor Bagnall
Senior Lecturer in the Sociology of Culture
University of Salford
The Imperial War Museum North: Making sense of visitor responses to this ‘cathedral of the postmodern age’
The Imperial War Museum North has been described as having 'pretentious architecture' (Fleming, 2005), as being a site of 'playful discombulation' (Rowland & Bagnall, 2009), and of adopting a mode of display that leads to the aesthetication and commodification of the museum object. This paper will examine visitor responses to the IWMN in the light of such claims. It will be argued that the integration of the spectacular and personal testimony allows visitors to produce a range of meanings and responses to the Museum. Responses that are saturated with nostalgia, reminiscence and emotion, and where there is often a personalisation of war and its effects.
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Thursday 26 November 2009
Dr Laurajane Smith
Reader in Heritage Studies, Department of Archaeology, University of York
Man's inhumanity to man' and other platitudes of avoidance and misrecognition: results of museum visitor surveys of 1807 exhibitions
This paper will examine the ways in which audiences in Britain engage with traumatic history. Based on analyses of qualitative audience research at a number of British exhibitions marking the 1807 bicentenary of the abolition of the British Transatlantic Slave Trade, the paper will examine how the performance of museum visiting is used in the construction of personal and national identities and in negotiating social debates and values that centre on multiculturalism and racism. Drawing on critical concepts and debates about remembering, performativity and the politics of recognition the paper will chart the ways in which certain audiences shield themselves from traumatic histories and their contemporary implications, while also examining how other audiences embrace the implications and actively utilize the museum visit to construct positive dialogs about contemporary social and political issues.
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Thursday 28 January 2010
Professor John Parkington
University of Cape Town
The Clanwilliam Living Landscape Project
The Clanwilliam Living Landscape Project (CLLP) is an attempt to share the results of decades of research into precolonial hunters and gatherers with communities who live in the vicinity of archaeological sites. As elsewhere issues of identity, conservation and job creation are important. This seminar is a progress report on our experiences and objectives.
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John Pendlebury
School of Architecture Planning and Landscape
Newcastle University
The postwar rise of conservation: heroic struggle or technocratic evolution?
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Thursday 18 March 2010
Neville Gabie and Jason Wood
The Football Ground and Visual Culture: Recapturing Place, Memory and Meaning at Ayresome Park
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Thursday 29 April 2010
Dr Rhiannon Mason
Senior Lecturer in Museum and Heritage Studies
ICCHS, Newcastle University
Title tbc
Conferences
Engaging Communities is a two-day AHRC-funded student-led conference organised by the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies.
4th-5th December 2009
Newcastle University and Great North Museum
This conference will bring together graduates, postgraduates and early-career researchers to share and discuss issues concerning the engagement of communities in relation to heritage, museums and galleries practice, including community-led initiatives.
Keynote Speakers:
- Dr. Bernadette Lynch, University of Manchester
- Dr. John Carman, Institute of Archaeology and Antiquity, Birmingham University
Call for papers:
Papers may present, but are not limited to, research and/or case studies concerning:
- engagement of communities through museum, galleries and heritage practice
- community-led projects
- local community involvement with archaeological site management
- projects initiated and steered by local communities
- internet community development and partnerships
- the role of engaging communities when representing difficult histories
- social history studies
- cultural policy-making with an emphasis on engaging communities
- education and learning
- cross-cultural communication
- safeguarding of communal cultural heritage, including intangible cultural expressions
By ‘engaging’ the research ‘community’, this conference will provide an opportunity to reflect on a range of issues, including the following: How, within the research community, do we go about researching ‘communities’ in the context of heritage, museums and galleries? What are the epistemological, theoretical, methodological and ethical issues that frame this field of study? How are current researchers tackling such issues and what can we learn from the different responses coming out of the various contexts and academic backgrounds that are currently engaged with this research problem? How does the artificial division of fields and disciplines within academic research communities influence the ways in which ‘community’/‘communities’ is conceived, conceptualised and studied? How might improving communication and understanding of the range of theoretical and methodological approaches between different ‘disciplines’ in the research community move the field of communities and heritage, museums and galleries forward?
Deadline for a 200 word abstract: September 15th, 2009
Email abstract (word doc) to: engaging2009@googlemail.com
Questions: engaging2009@googlemail.com
Organising Committee
Nikki Spalding, Bryony Slater and Michelle L. Stefano
This conference is funded by AHRC, Collaborative Research Training Scheme 2009