The Museum of Babel
The Museum of Babel: Meditations on the Metahistorical Turn in Museography is a thought-provoking, transatlantic reading of contemporary exhibits of the museum’s own past. Museums everywhere now exhibit ‘evocations’ of their own pasts, often in the form of refashioned, ancestral cabinets of curiosities. Moving beyond discussions of ‘the return to curiosity,’ Thurner calls this retrospective trend the metahistorical turn in museography. Providing engaging and lively meditations on exhibits of the museal past in art, natural history, archaeology, and anthropology museums, including the Prado, the Royal Cabinet of Natural History, the Ashmolean, the British Museum, the Louvre, Coimbra’s Science Museum, Brazil’s scorched Museu Nacional, Mexico’s Museum of Anthropology, Argentina’s Museo de la Plata, and the Venice Art Biennale, Thurner argues that the ongoing metahistorical turn in museography is exposing the museum’s true vocation, which is to be a museum of itself, or metamuseum. In a
The History of Oxford University Press
The story of Oxford University Press spans five centuries of printing and publishing. Beginning with the first presses set up in Oxford in the fifteenth century and the later establishment of a university printing house, it leads through the publi...
Origin Story
By early morning 30 June 1860, a large crowd began to congregate in front of Oxford University's brand-new Museum of Natural History. The occasion was the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science and the subject of ...
Decolonize Museums
Behold the sleazy logic of museums: plunder dressed up as charity, conservation, and care. The idealized Western museum, as typified by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the British Museum, and the Museum of Natural History, has remained much the sa...
Historic Heart of Oxford University, The
Oxford's university buildings are world-famous. Over eight centuries, starting in the twelfth century, the University - the third oldest in Europe - gradually occupied a substantial portion of the city, creating in the process a unique townscape c...
Natural History Museum Book of Gemstones
Gemstones have been a source of fascination for Millenia, from the icy brilliance of diamond and the soft iridescence of pearl, to the deep red garnets treasured by ancient Egyptians and Victorians alike. They are used for their natural beauty in ...
University of Oxford: A Brief History, The
The University of Oxford is the third oldest university in Europe and remains one of the greatest universities in the world. How did such an ancient institution flourish through the ages? This book offers a succinct illustrated account of its colo...
My Nature Collection: Under the Sea
A stunning and interactive exploration of the natural world, celebrating the diversity of natural treasures under the sea and published in partnership with the Natural History Museum in London
The University of Oxford
This fresh and readable account gives a complete history of the University of Oxford, from its beginnings in the eleventh century to the present day. Written by one of the leading authorities on the history of universities internationally, it trac...
Snapshots of Museum Experience
Children are one of the major audiences for museums, but their visits are often seen solely from the point of view of museum learning. In Snapshots of Museum Experience, Will Buckingham draws upon Elee Kirk’s research amongst child visitors to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History, to take a different approach. Using a method of photo-elicitation with four-and five-year-old child visitors to the museum, the book investigates children’s experience of the museum, and in the process undermines many of our assumptions about the interests, needs and demands of child museum visitors. Drawing together the fields of museum studies and childhood studies, the book considers children as active creators of the museum visit. It investigates the way that children navigate and take control of the physical and social spaces of the museum, finding their own idiosyncratic pathways through these spaces. It also explores how elements of the museum ‘light up’, becoming salient to the child
Historic House Museums in the United States and the United Kingdom
Historic House Museums in the United States and the United Kingdom: A History addresses the phenomenon of historic houses as a distinct species of museum. Everyone understands the special nature of an art museum, a national museum, or a science mu...
Interpreting Historic House Museums
Times are changing at historic house museums and no one is more aware of this than the fourteen contributors to Interpreting Historic House Museums. These respected museum professionals consider the history of house museums and the need to look at...
American Museum Of Natural History Card Deck
Created in partnership with the world-renowned American Museum of Natural History, this beautiful, informative card deck captures, in pictures and words, 100 of the museum's most important artifacts, specimens, and exhibits-from a fossilized dinos...
Natural History Museum Book of Rocks & Minerals
A comprehensive, illustrated identification guide for beginners and serious collectors alike, featuring special colour photography of specimens held at the Natural History Museum, London. Rocks are minerals are naturally occurring compounds formed...
Pop Art
Announcing the new Princeton University Art Museum Monograph Series: Princeton University Art Museum Monographs is a new series of in-depth explorations of the museum's rich collections. Beautifully designed and produced, these books by leading an...
Voices from the Back Stairs
Historic house museums-one of the most prevalent types of history museums in the country-have long depicted the owners of the house and their families, but representing the servants has introduced a unique set of challenges. While museum professio...
Interpreting Difficult History at Museums and Historic Sites
Interpreting Difficult History at Museums and Historic Sites is framed by educational psychoanalytic theory and positions museum workers, public historians, and museum visitors as learners. Through this lens, museum workers and public historians c...
Interpreting Difficult History at Museums and Historic Sites
Interpreting Difficult History at Museums and Historic Sites is framed by educational psychoanalytic theory and positions museum workers, public historians, and museum visitors as learners. Through this lens, museum workers and public historians c...
Collecting curiosities
In 1735, professor Kilian Stobæus donated his collections to Lund University laying the foundation for the university’s first museum. The ‘Museum Stobæanum’ contained over 3000 natural history, historical and ethnographic objects typical of the cabinets of curiosity. This richly illustrated book is the first comprehensive history of these collecti
Natural History Museum Ocean Sticker Book
This is a fun and informative introduction to life in the world's oceans. Written and designed for young readers, it is packed with 100 re-useable stickers of fish, mammals, amphibians and invertebrates, from the great white shark to the tiny seah...
Murder at the Natural History Museum
August 1895. When the Museum Detectives are asked to investigate a vandalised dinosaur skeleton at the Natural History Museum, there is evidence that the fossil-hunting mania of the notorious Bone Wars in America may have reached British shores. B...
Wonder: The Natural History Museum Poetry Book
Wonder: The Natural History Museum Poetry Book is a beautiful gift hardback collection of poetry with poems inspired by The Natural History Museum. It covers everything from the depths of space to the very centre of the earth - there are poems abo...
Representing the Sporting Past in Museums and Halls of Fame
We live in a "museum age," and sport museums are part of this phenomenon. In this book, leading international sport history scholars examine sport museums including renowned institutions like the Olympic Museum in the Swiss city of Lausa...
Dinosaurs in the Attic
'Dinosaurs in the Attic 'is a chronicle of the expeditions, discoveries, and scientists behind the greatest natural history collection every assembled. Written by former 'Natural History 'columnist Douglas Preston, who worked at the American Museum of Natural History for seven years, this is a celebration of the best-known and best-loved museum in the United States.
Oxford History of Britain
A new edition of this best-selling history of Britain, from Roman times, now updated to cover the first decade of the 21st century. The Oxford History of Britain tells the story of Britain and its people over two thousand years, from the coming of...
Unnatural History Museum
For over a decade, from a tiny storefront in east London, the artist Viktor Wynd has been reinventing the cabinet of curiosities for the twenty-first century. The Viktor Wynd Museum of Curiosities, Fine Art & Natural History is now one of the ...
Museum Through a Lens
Visit the Natural History Museum - 100 years ago. Featuring a wealth of stunning black-and-white photographs from the Museum's archives, this book offers a real flavour of life at one of London's oldest and most famous visitor at...
Family Psychology
This book is the product of a multi-year initiative, sponsored by the Division of Family Psychology (43) of the American Psychological Association, the Family Institute at Northwestern University, Oxford University Press and Northwestern Universit...
Stories from the Camera
The remarkable photography collection of the University of New Mexico Art Museum owes its unique character and quality to the directors, curators, scholars, and artists who have taught, worked, and studied at the museum and in the universitys Depa...
STRATA
This sumptuous and comprehensive evaluation showcases Smith's 1815 hand-coloured map, A Delineation of the Strata of England and Wales, with part of Scotland, and illustrates the story of his career, from apprentice to fossil collector and from hi...
Museums in Motion
Here is a complete introduction to the history of museums, types of museums, and the key roles that museums play in the twenty-first century.Following an introductory chapter looking at what a museum is today, Part I looks at the history and types...
People's Galleries
This innovative history of British art museums begins in the early 19th century. The National Gallery and the South Kensington Museum (now the Victoria and Albert Museum) in London may have been at the center of activity, but museums in cities suc...
Interpreting Religion at Museums and Historic Sites
Interpreting Religion at Museums and Historic Sitesencourages readers to consider the history of religion as integral to American culture and provides a practical guide for any museum to include interpretation of religious traditions in its progra...
Museums in Motion
Here is a complete introduction to the history of museums, types of museums, and the key roles that museums play in the twenty-first century. Following an introductory chapter looking at what a museum is today, Part I looks at the history and type...
Oxford, the Collegiate University
Oxford is one of the world's great universities but this has not meant that it is exempt from pressures for change. On various fronts it has been required to meet the challenges that universities almost worldwide have to face. Given the retrenchme...
University Jubilees and University History Writing
Researching and writing its history has always been one of the tasks of the university, particularly on the occasion of anniversary celebrations. Through case studies of Prague (1848, 1948), Oslo (1911), Cluj (from 1919), Leipzig (2009) and Trondh...
Re-Imagining the Museum
Re-Imagining the Museum presents new interpretations of museum history and contemporary museum practices. Through a range of case studies from the UK, North America and Australia, Andrea Witcomb moves away from the idea that museums are always 'co...
Curators - Behind the Scenes of Natural History Museums
Over the centuries, natural history museums have evolved from being little more than musty repositories of stuffed animals and pinned bugs, to being crucial generators of new scientific knowledge. They have also become vibrant educational centers,...