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Museums as Ritual Sites critically examines the assumption that museums inherently function as ritual sites and, in turn, are poised to exert influence on cultural and societal change.
List of contents
The Enduring Value of Museum Ritual: Volume Introduction; Part 1. Ritualizing Diversity and Inclusion; 1. Living with Others: Fashioning a Post-Secular Citizen in the British Museum; 2. Remediating Colonialism: Stories of Gold in Harvard's Natural History Museum; 3. (Un)Civilizing Rituals: Challenging Cultural Memory at the Canadian Museum for Human Rights; Part 2. Rituals of Consumption; 4. Visiting Helene: Jachthuis Sint Hubertus at the Crux of the Kröller-Müller Donor Memorial; 5. Corporate Racial Citizenship: How Black Cultural Patronage Reinforces Capitalism; 6. Like-able Me, Like-able There: Instagram Selfie-Taking as Ritual Practice; Part 3. (Re)Presenting and Interrogating the Sacred; 7. The Many Faces of Mary Magdalene: Curatorially Compared, Ritually Construed; 8. Scenes of Ritual Intimacy: Museums and the Display of Magical Practice; 9. Reassembling the Sacred in Museums: Two Case Studies from Korea; Part 4. Ritual Tradition: Constraint and Opportunity; 10. Rituals after Ruin: The Memorialisation of the University of Cape Town Jagger Library; 11. Rituals of Erasure and Transcendence: Exhibiting Indigenous Objects in Art Museums; 12. Curating Rituals: The Role of Curators in Shaping Narratives of Culture
About the author
Lieke Wijnia (she/ her) is Head of Research and Collections at Stedelijk Museum Schiedam and Fellow of the Centre for Religion and Heritage at Groningen University.
James S. Bielo is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Northwestern University.
Summary
Museums as Ritual Sites critically examines the assumption that museums inherently function as ritual sites and, in turn, are poised to exert influence on cultural and societal change.
