Book talk “Consequential Museum Spaces”
About the Book:
In Consequential Museum Spaces Bettina Carbonell examines how African American history and culture is—and historically has been—represented in culturally specific and mainstream museums. Carbonell argues that African American museums provide a corrective history that is both argumentative and pragmatic: these museums educate and enlighten, and they seek to effect change. Her examples include a selection of regional African American museums—their buildings, framing devices, exhibitions, strategies of display, major themes, and relationships with the public. Recurring themes examined here include settlement narratives; key movements and individuals in political, social, and military history; the treatment of slavery—the African, transatlantic, and American slave trade, and the long history of slavery as an institution in the United States; the status of Africa—the continent and individual countries and regions—as a source of origins and traditions and a destination for reconnection with the past; and activism and human rights. Carbonell considers this museum-based work in the context of relevant historical (written) texts and contemporary theories involving memory and history, corrective history, intergenerational trauma, human rights, and historical consciousness.
About the Author
Bettina Messias Carbonell is an Associate Professor of English at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York, where she designs and teaches topics-based courses on literature, ethics, and human rights; she also teaches in the College’s Humanities and Justice Major where students approach justice-related issues from the perspectives of three disciplines: History, Literature, and Philosophy. Her publications include Museum Studies: An Anthology of Contexts (1st Edition 2004 Blackwell Publishing; 2nd Edition 2012 Wiley-Blackwell), review essays on the exhibition of African American history and culture in museums and a critical analysis of ethical inquiry in the work of Charles Chesnutt.
Time: 4:30-5:30 pm EST
Free!
