From Wonder Cabinets to Wakanda: Africa on Display

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Have you ever put together a collection? Sea shells, Pokemon cards, or something of more value? What drives our desire to accumulate, order, and display objects in a systematic way? This course examines the social phenomenon of collecting objects in broad terms, but centers on the particularly complex European and American practice of collecting and exhibiting Africa—its objects, peoples, and animals—in a variety of exhibitionary complexes across time and space including: wonder cabinets, ethnology museums, art museums, World's Fairs, zoos, theme parks, and Hollywood films.