Writing the Ethnological Museum - PhD Opportunity

Supervisory team: Dr Priya Gopal (Cambridge) and Professor Dan Hicks (Pitt Rivers Museum)

This collaborative project uses the historic inscription practices of the Pitt Rivers Museum as a lens through which to study the history and ongoing legacies of the knowledge made through colonialism in the context of the ethnographic museum. Primary material includes all writing practices involved in the functioning of the anthropological museum as an institution from 1884 to the present day: from vocabularies of people and thing to museum labels as a genre, a narratology of annual reports and accession books, a close reading of the card index and database, and the study of the diversity of practices of writing on objects. The hands of particular curators and collectors and the re-writing of museum displays will be put into dialogue with a broader set of questions about the relationships between objectification through material culture and representation through text.

In a cross-disciplinary perspective that brings literary analysis into dialogue with linguistic anthropology through material culture, the research  will involve a literary study of language, writing and speech acts as imperial technologies of objectification in the academy in the past, and a consideration of the scope for rereading and revision today.

Case studies will be drawn from across the geographical, temporal and disciplinary scope of the Pitt Rivers, from Asia and Africa to the Americas and Oceania, with regional or thematic focuses developing from the student’s own interests.

The research will be conducted at the intersection between a series of present themes in postcolonial literary and museum studies, including thinking about ‘voice’; the politics of representation/self-representation; technologies of writing; the making and unmaking of cultural, racial and gendered identities; archival silences and archival traces; reparative histories; the construction of narratives of self and other; the politics of the ‘contact zone’ and encounter and the question of ‘culture wars’; aesthetics and politics; the constitution and/or reframing of the archive; the politics of the particular and the universal; authority and authorship; narrative strategies and ‘narrativity’; (re)reading against the grain; and resistance, dialogics and rewriting.

The contemporary politics of empire and colonialism and their ongoing legacies will be central to the project, but in supple ways which allow for considerations of resistance, reflexivity and reconstitution. It might be possible, for instance, to consider the ways in which texts can function as colonial disciplinary and governance mechanisms while examining the possibilities for radical rewriting and re-imagining in the wake of empire. A number of questions might govern a study:

• Can colonial documents/collections/practices be deployed towards new political claims or imaginings of community?
• What forms of ‘epistemic co-operation’ might be possible in the reconstitution of collections or archives?
• Can the collection(s) in question at all enable a revisioning of the relationship between the particular and the universal?
• How might the voices of resistance be found in the interstices or margins of colonial knowledge?
• Do the collections entrench epistemic scepticism or can they serve to provide reparative histories and knowledges?
• In the process of ‘objectification’, does the ‘subject’ disappear entirely?

The student will have a background in literary studies, and a demonstrable interest in any aspect of postcolonial studies, archival studies, or anthropology. 

Application process:

For details of how to apply, please see: http://www.jobs.cam.ac.uk/job/19544/.  

Research Associate - Labelling Matters

Pitt Rivers Museum, South Parks Road, Oxford

Grade 7: £32,236 - £39,609 p.a.

The Pitt Rivers Museum is looking for a Research Assistant to manage a project that aims to identify and find ways to redress a range of ethical issues in the current displays. Are you a critical thinker ready to help tackle a complex problem around historical labelling and language-use in the much-loved and criticised Pitt Rivers Museum? The “Labelling Matters” project builds on inclusivity focused work being developed at the PRM and other ethnographic museums with the aim to dissect and dismantle some of the complex contested words, stereotypes and concepts that are present not only in museums but in society at large. What ways might we find to use the Pitt Rivers Museum Victorian age space, its historic labels and the contested nature of the collection to interrogate the Museum and related disciplines present and pasts? The Museum is seeking to appoint a Research Associate as part of our strategic vision to be a world-leading centre for the cross-disciplinary study of visual and material culture. The Research Associate will coordinate and carry out a review of the visual and textual language in the Museum’s main galleries and a selection of web-based microsites. This is a fixed-term post for 12 months and the postholder will work collaboratively with colleagues across the different sections of the Museum with regards to exhibition design and new interpretation guidelines as well as the other responsibilities outlined in the job description. Further details on the Oxford University website.

Job opportunity at Pitt Rivers Museum: Research Fellow

Research Fellow
Pitt Rivers Museum, South Parks Road, Oxford
Grade 7: £32,236 - £39,609 p.a.
The Museum is seeking to appoint a Research Fellow as part of our strategic vision to be a world-leading centre for the cross-disciplinary study of visual and material culture. The Research Fellow will join an active and engaged group of leading researchers within the Museum and contribute to it with their own cutting-edge work. The Fellow will carry out and publish independent research within the general fields of visual, material and museum anthropology and related themes that interconnect with the Museum’s collections and histories. The post holder will also help coordinate a new initiative to expand University teaching with the Museum’s collections. The Fellow will be fully supported in accessing collections for research purposes and in the preparation of research applications and also engage with the Museum’s Public Engagement with Research activities. Applicants should prepare a statement on their current and future research plans (up to 500 words) and also send examples of written work (published or unpublished) totalling no more than 10,000 words. Full deails of essential and desirable requirements are available on the Oxford University website. The closing date for applications is 12.00 noon on Thursday 7 Febraury 2019. Important notice regarding submitting your application - system availability in January 2019

UNIVERSITY OBJECTS’ JOURNEYS: From the stores to sharing with different user communities

UNIVERSEUM 2018 pre-conference training workshop

University of Glasgow, 11-13 June 2018

Hunterian Collections Study Centre at Kelvin Hall

(The main UNIVERSEUM conference takes place 13-15 June 2018)

Deadline for applications: 10 March 2018

Universeum is pleased to announce its 2^nd Training Workshop in collaboration with The Hunterian, at the University of Glasgow (Scotland). The workshop is aimed at Universeum members, either individual or institutional, and is open to anyone interested in becoming a Universeum member (for details on membership, see the Universeum website) who wish to develop their skills and knowledge in managing, documenting, interpreting, and disseminating university collections. The workshop is linked to Universeum’s annual conference which will take place from 13-15 June at the University of Glasgow.

University collections are diverse and range from scientific instruments to anatomical specimens, from maps to drawings, from manuscripts to plaster casts, to mention only a few. The workshop will make use of The Hunterian’s diverse and rich encyclopaedic collections of over 1.5 million objects, but will also encourage participants to bring to the discussions the issues and ideas that relate to their own collections from their institutions across Europe. The diversity of university collections and the complex associations that they bring, present significant challenges to the professionals and scholars studying, managing, and communicating them to diverse users. 

The workshop sessions will be co-ordinated by cultural heritage professionals and academics from the University of Glasgow and The Hunterian, as well as by the broader Universeum network working on collections management, provenance, accessioning and de-accessioning, conservation, cultural heritage trafficking, interpretation using analogue and digital media, storytelling, and student engagement. Workshop participants will be actively involved in a variety of hands-on, interdisciplinary, group-based, and discussion sessions, rather than passively listening to traditional lecture-style presentations.

The workshop aims at demystifying and deconstructing the various processes that take place once an object enters a university collection. Participants will engage directly with objects and collections at the state-of-the-art recently renovated Hunterian Collection Study Centre at the historic and iconic Kelvin Hall building and engage in a dialogue with curators, museum directors, conservators, collection managers, educators, university lecturers and researchers. The workshop will include a combination of group and individual work.

Participants will be expected to work on a short presentation of the key issues that arose from the workshop (during the third day with access to computers and printing facilities provided at Kelvin Hall) to present at session during the main conference, so will be expected to stay in Glasgow for the whole week (11-15 June 2018) during which the workshop and conference will take place.

Workshop topics covered

Day 1: Building and managing collections: Object-based learning; Accessioning and De-accessioning objects; Objects’ provenance; Trafficking of antiquities and cultural property

Day 2 – Communicating and sharing collections: Working internationally and collaboratively in exhibitions; exhibition planning and curating; student engagement and museum education; digital interpretation

Day 3 am (half day) Preparation for presentation for main conference based on workshop experience and discussions

Who is it for? The workshop is aimed mainly at early career professionals working in university museums, archives, libraries, special collections, PhD students and early career researchers working with/on university collections

Registration fee: There is no fee for attending the workshop

Other costs: Lunch and coffee/tea during the day will be provided by Universeum. Participants, or their organisations, will be expected to cover their own travel and accommodation. Information and suggestions for these are provided on the Universeum2018 website. An optional evening meal will be organised for the first evening, 11 June 2018 to be paid by the participants who sign up for it

Maximum number of participants: To allow for hands-on and behind-the-scenes sessions and work in small groups, the workshop is limited to 16 participants

Grants: The Universeum Board is able to offer 5 travel grants of 500 euros each (250 euros for participants based in the UK) to cover travel within Europe and accommodation

Workshop dates: 11-13 June 2018, 2.5 days (before the main Universeum main conference which will take place 13-15 June. Post-conference study trips to Scottish university collections outside Glasgow will take place 16-17 June (more details about these will be provided at the Universeum2018 website nearer the time). Workshop participants are expected to attend also the main Universeum conference

Venue: Hunterian Collections Study Centre at Kelvin Hall, 1445 Argyle Street, Glasgow G3 8AW

Eligibility: 

·         Workshop participants should have paid the Universeum annual membership fee, either institutional or individual, for 2018 (so check if your institution is already a member). If you are interested in becoming a member, please check the membership section of the Universeum websites 

·         Participants should be researching or working with a University collection, museum, archive, or library (either as part of their work or PhD or post-doctoral studies/research) at the time the workshop will take place

·         Participants should be fluent in spoken and written English

Overall selection of applicants will take into account gender balance, as well as the diversity of their backgrounds, age, country, and museum/collection(s).

Participants should be prepared to do preparatory work before and during the workshop (e.g. readings and assignments), participate in its evaluation, and prepare a presentation for the main conference.

Application process: Applications should include:

1.      Completed application form (download from)

2.      A letter of motivation from the applicant explaining why they wish to participate and what they expect to gain from the workshop (1 A4 page)

3.      A short CV (up to 1 A4 page) indicating studies, training, work experience, publications, and current work responsibilities

Applications should be sent by email to Universeum2018@glasgow.ac.uk with the title: “application for Universeum pre-conference workshop 2018” before 10^th March 2018.

Contact: If you have any questions about the workshop, please send an email to Universeum2018@glasgow.ac.uk

Booking now open: From Malacca to Manchester: Curating Islamic Collections Worldwide

Registration for the upcoming conference From Malacca to Manchester: Curating Islamic Collections Worldwide (Manchester Museum, UK, 22-24 February 2017) is now open. 

 

For more information and to book please follow this link: http://www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk/whats-on/events/malaccatomanchester/.

 

Attendance will be charged at £20 per day for the two days of the full conference programme (£10 per day for students).

 

The workshops and visits are free but may only be attended by paying conference attendees, with the exception of the SSN workshop which anyone can attend (preferential booking will be given to UK museum professionals engaged with Islamic art and material culture).

 

Enquiries should be sent to: malaccatomanchester@gmail.com.

 

Colour in Cloth: Call for Papers

Passed Research Fund Conference, 10 -11th April 2017

From initial design to production and dissemination, colour is central to the manufacture and use of cloth and clothing. This unique international conference will explore the various and multifarious relationships between colour and textiles, from dyeing and distribution, to chromatics and conservation. Through a combination of papers and workshops, it will demonstrate new and continuing research through historical, theoretical and practical investigation, drawing on interdisciplinary expertise that includes history, archaeology, conservation, sustainable futures, design and material culture.

The conference will be held over two days and in two locations: the University of Glasgow and the University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh College of Art. These two cities represent the diverse heritage of textile manufacture and design in Scotland, from the industrial scale Turkey red dyed and printed cottons, to the artisanal tapestry workshop of the Dovecot and design education. The conference will celebrate the differences of these two cities, as well as drawing on what unites them and the wider world through the history and current practice in colour and textiles. Day One will be held in Glasgow and will consist of papers that deal with the history and theory of colour and textile design, production and use, in addition to contemporary practice within the field. On Day Two we will hold complementary and exploratory hands-on workshops and site visits in Edinburgh, exploring the history, theory and study of textiles through practical and innovative means.

The organisers particularly welcome proposals that combine a paper and complementary workshop idea, but also encourage individual papers (20 mins) or workshop proposals (expected to last 1-1.5 hours) that examine textiles and colour in theory and practice. Working under the wider umbrella themes of the production, consumption and conservation of colour in cloth, suggested themes for paper and workshop proposals include, but are not limited to:

  Scotland and the World
  Science and Technology
  Colour and Perception
  Colour, Fashion, Trend
  Colourless or the Absence of Colour  Learning with Colour and Textiles

Limited student bursaries will be available, more details to follow.
Titles and abstracts (200 words) for papers and/or workshops, should be sent to Sally Tuckett and Lindy Richardson by Monday 15th January 2017. Full registration details and bursary information will be available in January 2017. 

MEG Occasional paper on Cook Voyage Collections now available

Mock up of new Cook Voyage display at the Pitt Rivers Museum

MEG’s latest Occasional Paper (number 5) has just been published. Cook-Voyage Collections of ‘Artificial Curiosities’ in Britain and Ireland, 1771–2015 comprises detailed accounts of some of the most important ethnographic collections from Cook voyages, including those of the British Museum, the University of Cambridge Museum of Archaeology and Anthrpology, the University of Oxford’s Pitt Rivers Museum, the National Museum of Ireland (ex Trinity College Dublin), and National Museums Scotland. As well as providing a wealth of new information about what was collected on the voyages and how it was distributed - including illustrated accounts of recently identified objects at the British Museum, the Bowes Museum, and elsewhere - the volume also contains detailed accounts of what has been done with the collections from the time of their arrival in Britain and Ireland in the 1770s through to today. 

Contents: 300 pp., 106 black-and-white figures; Jeremy Coote, ‘Introduction’; Jennifer Newell, ‘Revisiting Cook at the British Museum’; Amiria Salmond, ‘Artefacts of Encounter: The Cook-Voyage Collections in Cambridge’; Jeremy Coote, ‘The Cook-Voyage Collections at Oxford, 1772-2015’; Rachel Hand, ‘“A Number of Highly Interesting Objects”: The Cook-Voyage Collections of Trinity College Dublin’; Dale Idiens and Chantal Knowles, ‘Cook-Voyage Collections in Edinburgh, 1775–2011’; Leslie Jessop, ‘Cook-Voyage Collections in North-East England, with a Preliminary Report on a Group of Māori Pendants Apparently Traceable to the First Voyage’; Adrienne L. Kaeppler, ‘From the South Seas to the World (via London)’.

The volume is available from: Sue Giles (MEG Publications), Senior World Cultures Curator, Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, Queen’s Road, Bristol BS8 1RL; sue.giles@bristol.gov.uk; UK, £17.50; Europe, £22.00; World, £26.00 (including postage and packing).

‘These essays contain a wealth of new information about enormously significant early-voyage collections in the UK and Ireland. This book will be a vital resource for all curators and researchers interested in the Pacific, in Cook's voyages, and the issues the voyages raise.’ (Professor Nicholas Thomas, Director, Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, University of Cambridge.)

‘These excellent papers are essential reading for everyone interested in forensic ethnography, cultural relations, and the rude good health of museum anthropology in the UK. Cook-voyage studies, which only began in the 1970s, are in all their permutations, at the foundation of best curatorial practice.’ (Jonathan King, Former Keeper of Africa, Oceania and the Americas at the British Museum.)

 

Museums at Night: Pacific

 

Pitt Rivers Museum

13 May, 19.00-22.00 (£5)

 

Join Pitt Rivers Museum and Museum of Natural History for an interactive, atmospheric journey through the Pacific! Help make a Hawaiian feather cloak, handle genuine objects from the collections and explore the galleries amidst the sights and sounds of the South Pacific. Then alight for refreshment at the bar whilst listening to live music from Oxford Ukuleles. Book now.

Exhibition: “Dressed as a New Zealander”
Pitt Rivers Museum

21 March – 3 July 2016

Archive Case (First Floor)

 

Photograph of Ella Monier-Williams taken in July 1866 by Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll). [2012.107.1]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This temporary display highlights an original print by Charles Dodgson (Lewis Carroll), a photograph of eight-year-old Ella Monier-Williams ‘Dressed as a New Zealander’, taken in Oxford in July 1866 and recently acquired by the Museum. The case display examines Dodgson’s staging of the photograph – for which he borrowed objects from the University’s collections – and presents new research findings identifying these objects, which are now in the Pitt Rivers Museum, alongside a number of the objects themselves. Several of the items used as 'props' in the photograph are from the important Forster collection made during Captain James Cook’s famous second voyage to the Pacific.

MA Study in the Arts of Africa, Oceania and the Americas

The Sainsbury Research Unit for the Arts of Africa,Oceania and the Americas (SRU) is offering four scholarships for students enrolled in our distinctive MA course (2016/17). Study is highly flexible, can be tailored to students interests, and combines art-historical, anthropological and archaeological approaches, as well as study visits to UK and European museums. Candidates interested in careers in museum curatorship are especially welcome to apply. 

Enquiries: Lisa Farrington

Call for papers: ‘Faith and Community: Interpreting beliefs in the Modern Museum’ MEG Conference 2015

Manchester Museum
18 and 19 April 2016

Manchester Museum is part of the University of Manchester and is internationally renowned for its encyclopaedic collections, innovative exhibitions, and extensive learning and engagement programme. The museum is critical to communicating the results of ground-breaking University of Manchester research, such research has informed exhibitions including Breed: The British and Their Dogs, Rapa Nui: The Statues from Easter Island and most recently Gifts for the Gods: Animal Mummies Revealed. This year it has initiated an exploration of South Asian collections across the museum, the Whitworth, and Manchester Art Gallery, collectively known as the Manchester Partnership,  in preparation for several exciting forthcoming projects. A significant percentage of this material is linked to faith in South Asia and the South Asian diaspora, making the conference topic particularly relevant to this research. The conference will provide Manchester Museum with an invaluable opportunity to hear from other colleagues and organisations working in this area, we’re hoping for a diverse range of papers to stimulate debate and discussion. Manchester Museum actively encourages you to consider submitting a paper proposal and welcoming to Manchester in April 2016.

If you are interested in submitting a paper for the conference please send your title and draft abstract (c.100 words) to Stephen Welsh at Manchester Museum by 5pm on 12th February 2016.

Oxford Anagama Kiln Project

A social anthropologist from Oxford University is collaborating with Japanese and UK potters in building and firing two traditional kilns in Wytham Woods near Oxford. Dr Robin Wilson, an associate researcher from the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography, is studying how a traditional craft can remain commercially successful in a modern global economy. The 11-metre-long anagama kiln, fashioned from willow and clay, was lit on the 11th August. To follow the project and find out more visit the University of Oxford news and events web page here.

Where Science and Society Meet Conference

University Museums Group and University Museums in Scotland joint conference

23 - 24th September 2015
University of Durham

There is no doubt that the public appetite for science is growing. The interface between science and culture continues to shift and is a constant point of excitement, interest and debate. Arguably science cannot be presented in isolation but as an integral part of our culture, intersecting with the arts and humanities, with museums providing ideal spaces to demonstrate and communicate this.

University museums are pioneering ways to engage audiences in the science research of universities and this conference will explore how these developments are more than advancing the public understanding of science. Instead they can engage audiences in current research agendas, the latest scientific breakthroughs and in the wider social and ethical issues connected to scientific research. Dynamic exhibitions and museum programming are increasingly creating  a dialogue and sparking public debate. Such interventions in the gallery space facilitate knowledge exchange between the research community and our audiences, whilst also re-animating and challenging established perspectives of historical science and medical collections.

The conference will introduce delegates to the current science research landscape and will explore the intersection of science with arts and culture in a museum setting. Keynotes and panel discussions will address the challenge of combining these themes and linking collections in ways that inspire our visitors. Sessions will bring practitioners in the sciences and social sciences together with museums professionals and artists to talk about science engagement and reinvigorating science collections in museums.

Booking information
Conference fee is £75.00
This includes lunch, tea and coffee on both days as well as the optional museum tours on the second day. The evening drinks party is being supported by Durham University. A reduced rate of £45.00 is available for students (limited to 20 places).

Accommodation
City centre university accommodation is available within Durham Castle (University College) and neighbouring Hatfield College at a special conference rate. This can be booked online at the time of booking the conference. A range of single, double and twin accommodation is available, starting at £54.16 per person per night including a full English breakfast. Alternatively a range of hotels, guesthouses and B&B accommodation is available in Durham city centre.

Please book online

To view the full conference details and programme click here