Museum Studies Blog

The Queer Museum: Radical Inclusion and Western Museology, by Erica Robenalt. Routledge, 2024. REVIEWED BY KAL DEMAREE  Authored by Erica Robenalt, The Queer Museum: Radical Inclusion and Western Museology delves into the role of LGBTQ+ representation and queer theory in museums. Through ideas of queer utopia and futurity, the book combines queer theory and museology …

Effective Diversity, Equity, Accessibility, Inclusion, and Anti-Racism Practices for Museums, edited by Cecile Shellman. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2022  REVIEWED BY KINZIE WHIPPLE  In recent years, many museums have made countless efforts to appear more inclusive, but most of these efforts have fallen flat. Museum diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion consultant, Cecile Shellman, took the …

The Invention of Prehistory: Empire, Violence, and Our Obsession with Human Origins, by Stefanos Geroulanos. New York, N.Y.: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 2024.  REVIEWED BY G. BUTLER  “Theories of our past have shaped history and the world we live in today”: this is the thesis of NYU history professor Stefanos Geroulanos in his book The Invention …

Belitung: The Afterlives of a Shipwreck, by Natali Pearson. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2022.  REVIEWED BY THOMAS CRAIN  In Belitung: The Afterlives of a Shipwreck, Natali Pearson, an underwater cultural heritage researcher, attempts to untangle the many lives, contexts, and controversies of the Belitung shipwreck by exploring it through a unique contextual framework. The …

A New Role for Museum Educators: Purpose, Approach, and Mindset, edited by Elizabeth Wood. Oxfordshire: Routledge, 2023.  REVIEWED BY RINI SHIELDS   Elizabeth Wood’s A New Role for Museum Educators challenges us to take a critical look at theoretical foundations of museums’ educational purpose as well as new charges towards social justice and community inclusiveness. …

The Museum: A Short History of Crisis and Resilience, by Samuel J. Redman. New York: New York University Press, 2022. REVIEWED BY LAUREN FREIJE Museums exist in the context of the world around them. As museums have evolved to take their place as cultural institutions, they have been forced to respond to a multitude of …

Culture: The History of Us from Cave Art to K-Pop, by Martin Puchner. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company, 2023.  REVIEWED BY SHANNON SUTTON  Culture: The History of Us from Cave Art to K-Pop by Martin Puchner follows the thread of art, religion, and society from paleolithic cave paintings in France to the …

Museum Education for Today’s Audiences: Meeting Expectations with New Models, edited by Jason L Porter and Mary Kay Cunningham. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2022.  REVIEWED BY SYDNEY COYNE  In the aftermath of 2020, museum professionals responded to drastic shifts in the field, reimaging their uses of technology and approaches to social inequities. Museum Education for …

Welcoming Museum Visitors with Unapparent Disabilities, edited by Beth Redmond-Jones. Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield, 2024.  REVIEWED BY CHLOE OLIVER First and foremost, I would like to make it clear that I am reviewing this book as not only a museum studies student, but also as a person with multiple unapparent disabilities. I am autistic, …

The Contested Crown: Repatriation Politics between Europe and Mexico. Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2022.  REVIEWED BY KYLIE BARKLEY  During the 16th century, conquistadors stole an Aztec ceremonial feather headdress, now referred to as El Penacho, and brought it back to Europe as part of an effort to colonize modern …