Course Syllabus

Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, Ca                                                              Fall                                                                                                                        2014

RA 2980

Introduction to Religion in the Museum

Meeting Location and Time: TBA

3 credit Hours

 

Instructor: Warren Harasz                             Office Hours: TBA

                                                                        Office Location: TBA

Telephone#: (H):321-501-5955                      Email Address:  wharasz@ses.gtu.edu

 

Prerequisites: Intended for MA and MDiv students of the GTU consortium. This course is intended to create an inter-disciplinary dialog about sacred space and ritual practice in the museum. Students from a wide variety of backgrounds and fields are encouraged to enroll.

 

Course Description: Museums as fundamentally modern institutions have a tenuous relationship with religious art and artifacts which are so often the content of their displays. On the one hand, modern historical and scientific narratives within museum displays take part in the disenchantment of society by removing the religious contexts of the object being exhibited. On the other hand, there has been a contemporary resurgence of scholarship regarding museums as "Sacred Spaces," as well as public history institutions which are beginning to blur the secular/sacred divide in their methods of presentation. This course will provide students with an introduction to the history of museums as public institutions, and a basic understanding of general topics and issues in the field of Museum Studies. This course will also provide in depth analysis and discussion of contemporary issues in the public display of religious art and artifacts. Students will have the opportunity to learn from a broad range of examples from the texts, in discussion, and during frequent course visits to museums which display these kinds of objects.

 

Course Objectives:

• Understand the historical development of museums as public institutions
• Analyze and discuss contemporary issues and problems in the public display of religious art and artifacts.
• Interpret and analyze the relationship between art, religion, and ritual practice from a variety of methodologies.
• Interpret and analyze the work of contemporary artists/museum displays and their relations to ritual practices and methods of invoking sacred space within secular institutions.
• Students will generate an original research paper based upon course materials, field trips, and their own findings.

 

Student Responsibilities:

 

• Attending class sessions prepared to discuss the assigned readings
• Bi-weekly one page reflection papers upon the current readings and museum visits.
• Producing an original research paper upon a topic of the student's choice, with guidance from the instructor.

 

Required Texts:

-Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum

-Marie Bouquet and Nuno Porto, Science, Magic, and Religion

-Crispin Paine, Godly Things; Museums, Objects, and Religion

-Carol Duncan, Civilizing Ritual Inside Public Art Museums

- Colleen Mcdannell Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America

 

***Additional readings on the Syllabus will be Posted online via Moodle or will be available through JSTOR via the GTU Library***

 

Student Evaluation:

• Weekly attendance and discussion= 20%
• Bi-weekly reflection papers. Students will write a 1-2 page double spaced reflection paper briefly discussing an issue from the readings or reviewing an author's work (5 total @ 4% each)= 20%
• Exhibit reviews. Students will be expected to write two 1-3 page double spaced reflection papers reviewing works or aspects of a museum visited during the timeframe of the course. (2 total @ 5% each)= 10%
• Research paper of 15-18 pgs double spaced. Students must discuss their topic with the instructor by the 5th week of class. At which point they will determine a method and a research topic relevant to the course materials and museum exhibits.=35%
• Research presentation of 10-12 minutes. A brief oral presentation on the student's research project with feedback from the instructor and fellow classmates. =15%

 

Course Schedule:

 

Week 1: Introduction, review of syllabus and course expectations.

 

The Development of the Modern Museum and the Culture of Disenchantment

 

Week2: -Douglas Crimp, "On the Museum's Ruins"

- Tony Bennett, "The Exhibitionary Complex"

-Silvio A. Bedini "The Evolution of Science Museums"

 

Week 3: -Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum; Chp 1 "The Formation of the Museum"

- James Clifton "Truly a Worship Experience? Christian Art in Secular Museums"

1st reflection paper due.

 

Week 4: -Colleen Mcdannell Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America; Chps 1-2 "Material Christianity" and "Piety, Art, and Fashion: The Religious Object"

Visit to the Oakland Museum.

 

Week5: -Tony Bennett, The Birth of the Museum; Chp 3 "The Political Rationality of the System." -Marie Bouquet and Nuno Porto, Science, Magic, and Religion; Chp 10 by Sharon Macdonald "Enchantment and its Dilemmas; the Museum as a Ritual Site"

2nd reflection paper due.

 

Boundaries of the Sacred and Ritual Practice

 

Week 6: -Marie Bouquet and Nuno Porto, Science, Magic, and Religion; Chp 1 "Introduction: Science, Magic, and Religion: The Ritual Processes of Museum Magic"

- Joan R. Branaham "Sacrality and Aura in the Museum: Mute Objects and Articulate Space"

 

Week 7: -Carol Duncan Civilizing Ritual Inside the Public Art Museum; Chps 1 & 5 "The Art Museum as Ritual" and "The Modern Art Museum: It's a Man's World"

-Andrew Guilliford "Native Americans and Museums: Curation and Repatriation of Sacred Tribal Objects"

3rd reflection paper due.

 

Week 8: -Marie Bouquet and Nuno Porto, Science, Magic, and Religion; Chp 8 "Haunted Art: Visiting an Exhibit in Weimar" by Barbara Wolbert

-Anthony Fisher and Hayden Ramsay "Of Art and Blasphemy"

Visit the De Young Museum.

 

Week 9: -Lee Rust Brown "The Emerson Museum"

-Elizabeth A. Dant “Composing the World: Emerson and the Cabinets of Natural History”

1st Exhibit paper due.

 

Religious Experience in the Exhibit and Sacred Spaces on Display

 

Week 10: -Constance Classen "Museum Manners: The Sensory Life of the Early Museum"

-Colleen Mcdannell Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America; Chp 6 "Christian Kitsch and the Rhetoric of Bad Taste"

4th reflection paper due.

 

Week 11:  -Tammy S. Gordon "Heritage, Commerce, and Museal Display: Toward a New Typology of Historical Exhibition in the United States"

-Michael Berenbaum “The World Must Know: The History of the Holocaust As Told in United States Holocaust Memorial Museum”

Visit the Contemporary Jewish Museum.

 

Week12: -Marie Bouquet and Nuno Porto, Science, Magic, and Religion; Chps 5 & 6 "Paradise in the Making at Artis Zoo, New Amsterdam" by Natasha Silva and "The Natural Magic of San Giovanni: Authority, Authenticity, and Ritual in Sardinia" by Tracey Heatherington.

2nd exhibit paper due.

 

Week 13: -Colleen Mcdannell Material Christianity: Religion and Popular Culture in America; Chps 4 & 8 "The Religious Symbolism of the Laurel hill Cemetery" and "Christian Retailing."

5th reflection paper due. ***1st group of presentations.

 

Week 14: -Leah Arroyo “Science on Faith at the Creation Museum”

-Raymond A Eve “Reflections on a Visit to the Creation Museum”

***2nd group of presentations.

 

***Final papers are to be submitted either electronically via email to the instructor or by hand into the instructor's mailbox by the date of the last day of finals week at 5pm. Submission at a later time without proper documentation of acceptable reasons for lateness will result in the loss of one letter grade per day. Eg. if a paper earned an "A" and is a day late it would become an "A-."***