Studying Historical Artifacts on YouTube
A new community of YouTube creators are using video to give audiences a close-up view of antique garments and accessories. Can they inspire museums to invest in new…
Tag: museums
Blue Plaque for Ho Chi Minh
The blue plaque for Ho Chi Minh on the site of the former Carlton Hotel, where he worked as Van Ba. It is on New Zealand House in…
Watch “Serampore & Denmark – A Living History by the Ganges” on YouTube
The bit where haunted buildings are mentioned strangely has the sound drop out, but there are some great things to explore still… and the drone and inserts could…
Justine Buck Quijada on her book, Buddhists, Shamans, and Soviets
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/buddhists-shamans-and-soviets-9780190916794 Interview by Claudia Lahr Claudia Lahr: What makes the subject of time – be it linear or recursive – so important i…
Lessons of Accountability
Below find the second of a series of guest posts offered in celebration on the occasion of our colleague and friend Daniel C. Swan’s retirement from the University…
Confronting the Colonial Legacies of Museum Collections
Berlin’s Humboldt Forum opened its doors to the public for a special event in 2019, even as construction on the building continued. David von Becker/SHF Art historian Bénédicte…
Sowei Mask Repairs in Focus: Material Interpretation and Object Itineraries (Lecture)
Sowei Mask Repairs in Focus: Material Interpretation and Object Itineraries A Material Culture Studies Lecture by Kristin Otto Thursday May 14, 2020 2–3 p.m. (EST) Email Jason Jackson…
New Project Pages
Here on Shreds and Patches, there is a new menu item for Projects. The Projects landing page gives a quick overview of, and links to, some of key…
Potential History (of Trinketization)
Seems about to nail the head on the hit: ‘Surrounded here by the wealth of objects, documents, images, and resources available in public and private museums, archives and…
Web Resources for Museum Job Seekers, Revisited
This semester I am teaching the undergraduate course Museums and Material Culture (FOLK-F440). The course combined an introduction to material culture studies with collections research projects at the…
#AFSAM19: Material Culture and Heritage Studies in Northern Guangxi, China
A title slide showing key project sites in the Dong areas of Guangxi and Guizhou. Shreds and Patches has been quieter than usual as I work my way…
2020/21 Fellowship Competition: Royal Museums Greenwich
2020/21 Fellowship Competition: Royal Museums Greenwich (deadline 6 October) Royal Museums Greenwich (which comprises the National Maritime Museum, the Royal Observatory, the Queen’s House and C…
Trinkets from Bác Hồ
Always on the lookout for the anthro connection, so this hit high on my trigger warning system: A gift from Uncle Ho to “Vuong Chi Sinh, a leader…
The Seventh Forum on China-US Folklore and Intangible Cultural Heritage: Collaborative Work in Museum Folklore and Heritage Studies
The following is a report on The Seventh Forum on China-US Folklore and Intangible Cultural Heritage: Collaborative Work in Museum Folklore and Heritage Studies (第七届中美民俗学与非物质文化遗产论坛: 博物馆民俗与遗产研究的协作工作). …
A Call for Transformation: Ending the Myth of Neutrality
Following my introductory post, I now describe the first of three parts of my call for transformation in museums and the academic-industrial complex. The first part is to:…
Exhibitions Week: Quilting Art and Tradition—People, Handcrafts, and Community Life (a.k.a. Quilts of Southwest China)
The MMWC has a huge amount of exhibition related news. This week I devote a series of posts to highlighting some of these developments. Huang Biyu introduces her…
Does Art Have a Homeland?
Detail from a 16th-century bronze plaque from Benin, West Africa, held at the British Museum, London. Trustees of the British Museum This article was originally published at Aeon and has…
The NASA Ames Junk Tent
History matters when explaining why we should fund NASA’s science. A junk tent with broken exhibits doesn’t tell that story. If you ever need a NASA logo pattern to…
Haidy Geismar on her new book, Museum Object Lessons for the Digital Age
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ucl-press/browse-books/museum-object-lessons-for-the-digital-age Interview by Joshua Bell Joshua Bell: Your book is a manifesto of sorts of what the digital – as a relatively ne…
Shreds and Patches in 2018
Which Shreds and Patches posts were most popular in 2018? These were: What is the current status of confidentiality and non-disclosure policies at HAU? Coconut Rattles in Florida…
Material Culture Journalism, 5
Material culture journalism, continued. Thanks to those who share stories… “Gritty’s Evolution from Googly-eyed Hockey Mascot to Meme to Leftist Avatar, Explained | On our burning hunger f…
At the Estonian National Museum
#fulbrightspecialist #fulbright #exchangeourworld This is the third of three anticipated posts on my fall 2019 visit to Estonia (1st, 2nd). A great resource for the University of Tartu’s…
The 2019 Summer Institute in Museum Anthropology (SIMA)
It is time to think about SIMA again! As in the past, I share here on an announcement from the SIMA organizers at the National Museum of Natural…
The Skeletons in the Museum Closet
Museums are full of wonderful things. From the Hope Diamond at the Smithsonian Institution’s natural history museum to the Folsom point at the Denver Museum of Nature &…