Staff Profile

Background

I joined Newcastle University in January 2001. Prior to this, I studied for a PhD at the Centre for Critical and Cultural Theory, Cardiff University, and taught at the universities of Cardiff and Glamorgan. I have previously been the Director of the International Centre for Cultural and Heritage Studies, Director of Research for the School of Arts and Cultures, Director of Postgraduate Studies for the School of Arts and Cultures,  UoA 36 REF coordinator, and the head of Media, Culture, Heritage. 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 comprises Fine Art and Art History, Music, and Media, Culture, Heritage and is home to 146 staff and 1,300 students.

Qualifications

BA (Hons)
MA
PHD

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 and control. 

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 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

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

I am a founder member of the Heritage@Newcastle NUCoRE and am a member of the steering group.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

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

• 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.
• 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, Arrigoni G, ed. European Heritage, Dialogue and Digital Practices. Abingdon: Routledge, 2019.
• Mason R, ed. Museum Studies. London, UK: Routledge, 2019.
• 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.
• Slusarczyk R, Mason R, Markham K. 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• Mason R, Robinson A, Coffield E. Museum and Gallery Studies: The Basics. Routledge, 2018.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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. 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, Mason R, Eckersley S, Lloyd K. Museums and Identity in History and Contemporaneity. Milan: Politenico di Milano, 2014.
• Whitehead C, Mason R, Eckersley S, Lloyd K, ed. "Placing" Europe in the Museum: people(s), places, identities. Milan: Politecnico di Milano, 2013.
• Graham H, Mason R, Nayling N. The Personal is still Political: Museums, Participation and Copyright. Museum and Society 2013, 11(2), 105-121.
• 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.
• Mason R. National Museums, Globalization, and Postnationalism: Imagining a Cosmopolitan Museology. Museum Worlds: Advances in Research 2013, 1(1), 40-64.
• 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.
• 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/.
• 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/.
• 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. 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, Eckersley S, Mason R. Placing Migration in European Museums: Theoretical, Contextual and Methodological Foundations. Milan: Politecnico di Milano DPA, 2012.
• 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, Whitehead C, Graham H. Northern Spirit: 300 Years of Art on Tyneside. 2010. Newcastle upon Tyne: Laing Art Gallery.
• 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.
• Graham H, Mason R, Newman A. Literature Review: Historic Environment, Sense of Place, and Social Capital. English Heritage, 2009.
• 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. Museums, nations, identities: Wales and its national museums. Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2007.
• 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. Cultural Theory and Museum Studies. In: Macdonald, S, ed. A Companion to Museum Studies. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005, pp.17-32.
• 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. 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. Nation Building at the Museum of Welsh Life. Museum & Society 2005, 3(1), 18-34.
• Mason R. Representar a Nação no Museu da Vida Galesa. In: Patrimónios e Identidades - Ficções Contemporâneas. 2005, Oeiras, Celta.
• 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. 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.
• 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.
• Mason R, Johnes M. Sport in Public History: Soccer, Public History and the National Football Museum. Sport in History 2003, 23(1), 115-131.
• Mason R. Postmodern Theory and Practice in Museums and Galleries. In: Forum UNESCO: VI Seminario Internacional. 2002, Valencia, Spain: UNESCO.