Museums: Power and Politics

Undergraduate

Museums are in a state of crisis. From calls for decolonization and repatriation to protests over human remains collections and unethical donor policies, museums and related cultural institutions find themselves at a crossroads, reckoning with their violent colonial histories while handling ongoing concerns about workers’ rights, systemic inequality, and their role in shaping knowledge in the public sphere. Whether addressing climate change policy, Black Lives Matter protests, fights for unionization, or Indigenous representation, it’s clear that museums are rich sites for critique in the history of science and beyond. How did we get here, and where do we go from here? Beginning with early modern cabinets of curiosity and moving through nineteenth century encyclopedic museums, controversial anatomical collections, and more recent natural history institutions, we investigate how museum politics and power produce knowledge, from the depths of their archives to sensationalized exhibits while questioning what an ethical, holistic museum might look like in the future. Amidst ongoing debates over controversial collections like the Benin Bronzes, human remains stored in universities across the United States, the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s 2023 admission of looting practices, and the American Museum of Natural History’s shallow apology for its eugenic past, the role of museums has expanded beyond the bounds of the academy, stoking universal struggles around human rights, international repatriation policies, and the politics of preservation, display, and loss. We bridge the classroom and the collection, visiting institutions around New Haven, practicing skills like provenance research and ethical handling of difficult objects while working towards a practice-based final project that suggests ways forward for museums and collections. WR , HU F 4pm-5:55pm