Heritage Executive Team

Background

I joined Newcastle University in January 2001. Prior to this, I studied for an MA and a PhD at the Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory, Cardiff University, and taught at the universities of Cardiff and Glamorgan. I studied English literature with European Studies at the University of Exeter and spent a year as an ERASMUS student at the University of Rennes II in Brittany. During my time at Newcastle, I have held many leadership roles. I became a Professor of Heritage and Cultural Studies in 2016 and since January 2017 I have been the Head of the School of Arts and Cultures (SACS). Our school is home to many of the cultural and creative arts subjects in the university such as Fine Art, Art History, Music, Media and Communication Studies, Digital Cultures, PR, Film, Journalism, Cultural Studies, Museum Studies, Curating Art, and Global Heritage Management. We are an international community of 171 staff and just over 1,300 students.

Qualifications

BA (Hons) in English Literature with European Studies

MA in Critical and Cultural Theory

PHD in Critical and Cultural Theory/Museum Studies

Postgraduate Certificate in Academic Practice

Memberships

Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (HEA)

Google Scholar: Click here.

Research Interests

My research is about the role of heritage and memory institutions, practices, and discourses in mediating public representations of people’s histories, cultures and identities.

I am interested in how institutions of public culture work, what drives their behaviours, and how can we understand this in terms of questions of power, agency, control and contestation. 

My work is primarily about publicly-funded museums, art galleries, and heritage organisations but I am also interested in how these are part of what I call a public ecology of remembering which could also include memorials, archives, rituals, commemorations, and public spaces such as parks. 

I am particularly interested in dimensions of public culture and heritage which deal with national identity and diversity. 

Although my work is rooted in ideas of cultural theory, I aim to draw out the implications for curatorship and wider museum practice. My work seeks to connect theoretical debates with practical concerns; my teaching and research projects frequently involve collaborating with museum and heritage sector professionals.

Research projects:

2016-2019: European Union. Horizon 2020 Award. ‘CoHERE’. Overall value:€2.5 million. Newcastle Award Value: €800K. (Co-Investigator) 

2014-2017: European Union. ERASMUS ‘Active Ageing and Heritage in Adult Learning.’ Overall value: €290,000. Newcastle Award Value: £19,833. (Newcastle Principal-Investigator) 

2015 Newcastle University Institute for Social Renewal Award. Collaborative research project with Tyne and Wear Archive and Museum. ‘Who do we think we are? Exploring Place, Identity in the North-East at the Discovery Museum, Newcastle.’ Overall value: £4,907. (Principal-Investigator)

2015 Newcastle University Institute for Creative Practice. Collaborative research project with Discovery Museum, Tyne and Wear Archives and Museums. ‘Digital Designs for Museum Dialogues’. Overall value: c£4,879. (Co-Investigator)

2011-2015 European Union. FP7 Award. ‘MeLa: European Museums in an Age of Migrations.’ Overall value: €2.7 million. Newcastle Award Value: £220,821. (Co-Investigator)

2011-2012: AHRC Follow-on Award. ‘Intellectual Property and Informed Consent: Partnerships and Participation in Museum Work.’ Overall value: c£40K. (Principal-Investigator)  

2011-2011: AHRC Follow-on Award with UCL. ‘Heritage, Health and Wellbeing: Mapping Future Priorities and Potential.’ Overall value: c£40K. Newcastle Value c.£4K. (Co-Investigator)

2008-2011. AHRC ‘Art on Tyneside: Redeveloping a permanent display about art, place and identity at the Laing Art Gallery’. Overall value: £345K. (Principal-Investigator) 

2010-2011: Holding memories: Memory, Objects, Museums and Older People workshop series, Newcastle University Changing Age Programme, with Joint-Principal Investigator: Areti Galani. (£4k). With Areti Galani, I organised two interdisciplinary workshops in September and November 2010 on this theme. The workshops brought together external academics and practitioners with colleagues from ICCHS and other parts of our University. These workshops were supported through the University's Changing Age programme.

Esteem Indicators

Current:

External Advisory Board member of ARTIS - the Art History Institute of the University of Lisbon

AHRC Reviewer for the REACH Collaborative Doctoral Partnership consortium

I am a founder member of the Heritage@Newcastle NUCoRE https://research.ncl.ac.uk/heritage-newcastle/

In 2019, I published a major 5 volumes survey of Museum Studies as part of Routledge's Major Works Series: https://www.routledge.com/Museum-Studies/Mason/p/book/9781138014350

Previous:

Editorial Board Member of museum and society journal

Editorial Board Member of Memory Studies journal

Editorial Board Member of Journal of Museum History

AHRC Reviewer

Teaching

I contribute to undergraduate and postgraduate teaching in Media, Culture, Heritage and on the Faculty Research Training Programme.

Postgraduate Research Supervision

I welcome postgraduate researchers who want to work in any of the areas relating to my research, for example:

• museums, galleries, heritage and identities
• national museums and heritage
• museums, heritage and European identities
• cosmopolitanism and heritage
• memory, heritage and museums
• gender, museums and heritage
• cultural theory and museology
• cultural diversity and museums, heritage, galleries
• history curatorship

• Articles

  • Mason R. Museums and Public Trust in Democratic Societies. Museum Ireland 2023, 30, 5-19.
  • Mason R, Sayner J. Bringing museal silence into focus: eight ways of thinking about silence in museums. International Journal of Heritage Studies 2018, 25(1), 5-20.
  • Mason R. National Museums, Globalization, and Postnationalism: Imagining a Cosmopolitan Museology. Museum Worlds: Advances in Research 2013, 1(1), 40-64.
  • McCarthy C, Mason R, Whitehead C, Parby J, Cicalo A, Schorch P, Witz L, Gonzalez PA, Roux N, Ambos E, Rassool C. Museums in a Global World: A Conversation on Museums, Heritage, Nation, and Diversity in a Transnational Age. Museum Worlds: Advances in Research 2013, 1(1), 179–194.
  • Graham H, Mason R, Nayling N. The Personal is still Political: Museums, Participation and Copyright. Museum and Society 2013, 11(2), 105-121.
  • Mason R. Nation Building at the Museum of Welsh Life. Museum & Society 2005, 3(1), 18-34.
  • Mason R. Museums and Identities: What can the National Museums and Galleries of Wales tell us about Welsh identities?. Social History in Museums 2005, 30, 9-18.
  • Mason R. Conflict and Complement: An Exploration of the Discourses Informing the Concept of the Socially Inclusive Museum in Contemporary Britain. International Journal of Heritage Studies 2004, 10(1), 49-74.
  • Mason R, Johnes M. Sport in Public History: Soccer, Public History and the National Football Museum. Sport in History 2003, 23(1), 115-131.

• Authored Books

  • Mason, R. Museums and Public Trust in Democratic Societies: Challenges and Opportunities (TBC). 2026. In Preparation.
  • Mason R, Robinson A, Coffield E. Museum and Gallery Studies: The Basics. Routledge, 2018.
  • Whitehead C, Eckersley S, Mason R. Placing Migration in European Museums: Theoretical, Contextual and Methodological Foundations. Milan: Politecnico di Milano DPA, 2012.
  • Mason R. Museums, nations, identities: Wales and its national museums. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2007.

• Book Chapters

  • Mason R. We need a new way to talk about heritage and politics. In: Bozoğlu, G; Campbell, G; Smith, L.J.; Whitehead, C, ed. The Routledge International Handbook of Heritage and Politics. 2024.
  • Mason R. Silence and Remembering: Locating the Cultural Trauma of Terrorism in London’s Museums, Archives and Memorials. In: Bounia A; Witcomb A, ed. The Ethics of Collecting Trauma. London, New York: Routledge, 2024.
  • Mason R. The Exhibitionary Complex. In: Mairesse F, ed. Dictionary of Museology. London: Routledge, 2023.
  • Markham K, Mason R, Slusarczyk R. Situating Belonging at the Intersection of Multi-scalar, Multi-dimensional, and Multi-directional Heritage: the Case of Post-industrial Communities in Gdańsk. In: Whitehead C; Eckersley S; Daugbjerg M; Bozoğlu G, ed. Dimensions of Heritage and Memory: Multiple Europes and the Politics of Crisis. Abingdon: Routledge, 2019, pp.122-142.
  • Galani A, Markham K, Mason R. Problematising digital and dialogic heritage practices in Europe: tensions and opportunities. In: Galani A; Mason R; Arrigoni G, ed. European Heritage, Dialogue and Digital Practices. London: Routledge, 2019, pp.9-36.
  • Galani A, Mason R, Rex B. Dialogues and heritages in the digital public sphere . In: Galani A; Mason R; Arrigoni G, ed. European Heritage, Dialogue and Digital Practices. London: Routledge, 2019, pp.109-121.
  • Galani A, Mason R, Rex B. Introduction: locating heritage and dialogue in digital culture . In: Galani A; Mason R; Arrigoni G, ed. European Heritage, Dialogue and Digital Practices. London: Routledge, 2019, pp.1-8.
  • McCarthy C, Mason R, Whitehead C, Parby JI, Cicalo A, Schorch P, Witz L, Gonzalez PA, Roux N, Ambos E, Rassool C. Museums in a global world: A conversation on museums, heritage, nation and diversity in a transnational age. In: Watson, S.; Barnes, A.J.; Bunning, K, ed. A Museum Studies Approach to Heritage. London, UK: Taylor and Francis, 2018, pp.543-558.
  • Sayner J, Mason R. Gendering 'the other Germany': Resistant and Residual Narratives on Stauffenbergstraße, Berlin. In: Grahn W; Wilson RJ, ed. Gender and Heritage: Performance, Place and Politics. Abingdon: Routledge, 2018, pp.185-206.
  • Sayner J, Lloyd K, Galani A, Mason R. Experiencing mixed emotions in the museum: empathy, affect, and memory in visitors' responses to histories of migration. In: Smith LJ; Wetherell M; Campbell G, ed. Emotion, Affective Practices and the Past in the Present. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2018, pp.124-148.
  • Whitehead C, Mason R, Eckersley S, Lloyd K. Place, Identity and Migration and European Museums. In: Whitehead C; Lloyd K; Eckersley S; Mason R, ed. Museums, Migration and Identity in Europe. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2015, pp.7-59.
  • Whitehead C, Lloyd K, Eckersley S, Mason R. Introduction: Museums, migration and identity in Europe. In: Museums, Migration and Identity in Europe: Peoples, Places and Identities. Ashgate Publishing Ltd, 2015, pp.1-6.
  • Mason R, Whitehead C, Graham H. One Voice to Many Voices?: Displaying Polyvocality in an Art Gallery. In: Golding, V., Modest, W, ed. Museums and Communities: Curators, Collections and Collaboration. London: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC, 2013, pp.163-177.
  • Mason R, Whitehead C, Graham H. The Place of Art in the Public Art Gallery: A Visual Sense of Place. In: Davis, P., Corsane, G., Convery, I, ed. Making Sense of Place: Multidisciplinary Perspectives. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2012, pp.133-144.
  • Mason R. Múzeumok, galériák, kulturális őrőkség: A jelentésalkotás és a kommunikáciόs színterei. In: Gabor, P, ed. Múzeumelmélet. Budapest: Petőfi Irodalmi Museum, 2012, pp.127-154.
  • Whitehead C, Mason R. Museums, Peoples, Places: European museums and identity in history. In: Basso Peressut, L., Pozzi, C, ed. European Museums in an Age of Migrations. Questions, Challenges, Perspectives. Milan: DPA Press, 2012, pp.153-160.
  • Mason R. Representing Wales at the Museum of Welsh Life. In: Knell, S; Aronsson, P; Amundsen, AB; Barnes, A; Burch, S; Carter, J; Gosselin, V; Hughes, S; Kirwan, AM, ed. National Museums: New Studies from Around the World. London: Routledge, 2010, pp.247-271.
  • Mason R, Baveystock Z. What role can digital heritage play in the re-imagining of national identities?: England and its icons. In: Anico, M., Peralta, E, ed. Heritage and Identity: Engagement and Demission in the Contemporary World. London: Routledge, 2009, pp.15-28.
  • Mason R. Representing ‘Wales’. In: Osmond, J, ed. Myths, Memories, and Futures: The National Library and National Museum in the Story of Wales. Cardiff: Institute of Welsh Affairs, 2007, pp.23-37.
  • Mason R. Museums, galleries and heritage: sites of meaning-making and communication. In: Corsane, G, ed. Heritage, museums and galleries : an introductory reader. London and New York: Routledge, 2005, pp.200-214.
  • Mason R. Cultural Theory and Museum Studies. In: Macdonald, S, ed. A Companion to Museum Studies. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005, pp.17-32.
  • Mason R. Devolving Identities: Wales and Scotland and their National Museums. In: Brocklehurst, H; Phillips, R, ed. History, Nationhood and the Question of Britain. New York: Palgrave, 2004, pp.312-329.

• Conference Proceedings (inc. Abstracts)

  • Mason R. Representar a Nação no Museu da Vida Galesa. In: Patrimónios e Identidades - Ficções Contemporâneas. 2005, Oeiras, Celta.
  • Mason R. Postmodern Theory and Practice in Museums and Galleries. In: Forum UNESCO: VI Seminario Internacional. 2002, Valencia, Spain: UNESCO.

• Edited Books

  • Mason R, ed. Museum Studies (Vols. 1-5). London, New York: Routledge, 2019.
  • Mason R, ed. Museum Studies. London, UK: Routledge, 2019.
  • Galani A, Mason R, Arrigoni G, ed. European Heritage, Dialogue and Digital Practices. Abingdon: Routledge, 2019.
  • Hansen A, Davenport B, Erlingsson C, Overgaard SB, Galani A, Mason R, Berntsen D, Djupdræt MB, Fog LA, Kofod L, Lindberg H, Mathiassen TE, Rasmussen AA, Kindleysides M, Wills T, Pembroke F, Sári Z, Bokonics-Kramlik M, Szigethy Z, ed. Reminiscence in open air museums - Results from the Erasmus+ project Active Ageing and Heritage in Adult Learning. Sweden: Jamtli Förlag, 2017.
  • Whitehead C, Eckersley S, Lloyd K, Mason R, ed. Museums, Migration and Identity in Europe: Peoples, Places and Identities. London: Routledge, 2015.
  • Whitehead C, Mason R, Eckersley S, Lloyd K, ed. "Placing" Europe in the Museum: people(s), places, identities. Milan: Politecnico di Milano, 2013.

• Exhibition

  • Mason R, Whitehead C, Graham H. Northern Spirit: 300 Years of Art on Tyneside. 2010. Newcastle upon Tyne: Laing Art Gallery.

• Online Publications

  • Mason R. DCMS Call for Evidence: Misinformation and Trusted Voices Written Evidence Submitted by Prof. Rhiannon Mason. London: UK Parliament, 2022. Available at: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/110524/pdf/.
  • Graham H, Mason R, Nayling N. Literature Review: ‘Participation’, Intellectual Property and Informed Consent. San Francisco, California, USA: Wordpress, 2012. Available at: http://partnershipandparticipation.wordpress.com/.
  • Graham H, Mason R, Nayling N. Booklet: Earning Legitimacy: Participation, Intellectual Property and Informed Consent. San Francisco, California, USA: Wordpress, 2012. Available at: http://partnershipandparticipation.wordpress.com/.

• Reports

  • Whitehead C, Mason R, Eckersley S, Lloyd K. Museums and Identity in History and Contemporaneity. Milan: Politenico di Milano, 2014.
  • Graham H, Mason R, Newman A. Literature Review: Historic Environment, Sense of Place, and Social Capital. English Heritage, 2009.

• Review

  • Mason R. Re-imagining the Museum: Beyond the Mausoleoum by Andrea Witcomb (2003) Routledge: London and New York. H-Museum Network for Museum Professionals 2004, 1-3.