Lee, Shimrit, author.

Decolonize museums / Shimrit Lee ; [edited by Bhakti Shringarpure].

New York ; London : OR Books, [2022]
©2022

287 pages : illustrations ; 18 cm

Decolonize That! Handbooks for the Revolutionary Overthrow of Embedded Colonial Ideas

The idealized Western museum has remained much the same for over a century: a rarified space of cool stone, providing an experience of leisure and education for the general public while carefully preserving fragile artifacts from distant lands. As questions about representation and ethics have increasingly arisen, these institutions have proclaimed their interest in diversity and responsible conservation, asserting both their adaptability and their immovably essential role in a flourishing society. Lee punctures this fantasy, tracing the colonial origins of the concept of the museum. White Europeans’ atrocities were reimagined through narratives of benign curiosity and abundant respect for the occupied or annihilated culture, and these racist narratives, Lee argues, remain integral to the authority—and even the aesthetics—of the contemporary museum. Citing pop culture portrayals from Indiana Jones to Black Panther and highlighting crucial activist campaigns to redress the harms perpetrated by museums and their proxies, this volume argues that we must face a dismantling of these seemingly eternal edifices, and consider what, if anything, might take their place. --From publisher description.

9781682193150 (paperback)
1682193152 (paperback)
(ebook)
9781682193167
1682193160

Museums Political aspects.
Museums Social aspects.
Cultural property.
Decolonization.
Musées Aspect politique.
Musées Aspect social.
Patrimoine culturel.
Décolonisation.
Patrimoine culturel immatériel.
cultural property.
intangible cultural heritage.

Shringarpure, Bhakti, editor, writer of preface.
Decolonize that!

Location: Library main 316004
Call No.: 316004
Copy: 1
Status: Available