Museums, Objects, and Collections: A Cultural StudyThis book examines the historical context of museums, their collections, and the objects that form them. Susan M. Pearce probes the psychological and social reasons that people collect and identifies three modes of collecting: collecting as souvenirs, as fetishes, and as systematic assemblages. She considers how museum professionals set policies of collection management; acquire, study, and exhibit objects; and make meaning of the objects in their care. Pearce also explores the ideological relationship between museums and their collections and the intellectual and social relationships of museums to the public. |
Contents
Body and Soul | |
Shaping the World | |
the Intellectual Rationale | |
Making Museum Meanings | |
Meaning as Function | |
Meaning as Structure | |
Meaning in History | |
Objects in Action | |
Problems of Power | |
Projects and Prospects | |
Bibliography | |
About the Author | |
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Common terms and phrases
activity aesthetic analysis Archaeology artefacts Ashmolean Museum Belk Binary pairs Bronze Age century chapter characteristic classification classificatory collectors construction contemporary context created creation curatorial curators described discussion display example exhibition experience expressed Figure functionalist fundamental gallery George Medal give groups human ideas important individual interest interpretation intrinsic Inuit kind knowledge language lexeme linked London material culture meaning meta-narrative metaphorical metonymic Model for object modern modes museum collections museum material narrative natural history notion operation organized particular past pattern physical pieces Pitt Rivers Pitt Rivers Museum Plate play possession post-modern Poster present produced range reality reception theory relation relationship role Roman seen semiotic sense significance social society souvenirs specific specimens structuralist structure suggests sword symbolic theory things thought traditional true understanding University of Leicester viewer Wallendorf Walsall whole word