Overview

Essays exploring the relationship between museums and biographies, with worldwide examples and from the early nineteenth century to the present day. Museums and biographies both tell the stories of lives. This innovative collection examines for the first time biography - of individuals, objects and institutions - in relationship to the museum, casting new light on the many facets of museum history and theory, from the lives of prominent curators, to the context of museums of biography and autobiography. Separate sections cover individual biography and museum history, problematising individual biographies, institutional biographies, object biographies, and museums as biographies/autobiographies. These articles offer new ways of thinking about museums and museum history, exploring how biography in and of the museum enrichesmuseum stories by stressing the inter-related nature of lives of people, objects and institutions as part of a dense web of relationships. Through their widely ranging research, the contributors demonstrate the value of thinkingabout the stories told in and by museums, and the relationships which make up museums; and suggest new ways of undertaking and understanding museum biographies. Dr Kate Hill is Principal Lecturer in History at the University of Lincoln. Contributors: Jeffrey Abt, Felicity Bodenstein, Alison Booth, Stuart Burch, Lucie Carreau, Elizabeth Crooke, Steffi de Jong, Mark Elliott, Sophie Forgan, Mariana Francozo, Laura Gray, Kate Hill, Suzanne MacLeod, Wallis Miller, Belinda Nemec, Donald Preziosi, Helen Rees Leahy, Linda Sandino, Julie Sheldon, Alexandra Stara, Louise Tythacott, Chris Whitehead, Anne Whitelaw

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9781843839613

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For the academic historian new to the debate on what makes history in museums, the variety of content, particularly in the latter half of this edited volume gives some sense of the complexity of the subject. There is much of interest that can also be garnered from the first part, not least in considering how museums and their collections came into being. REVIEWS IN HISTORY Informed, informative, and a highly recommended addition to academic library reference collections. MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW

For the academic historian new to the debate on what makes history in museums, the variety of content, particularly in the latter half of this edited volume, gives some sense of the complexity of the subject. There is much of interest that can also be garnered from the first part, not least in considering how museums and their collections came into being. REVIEWS IN HISTORY Informed, informative, and a highly recommended addition to academic library reference collections. MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW

[D]eeply engaging and accessible, providing unique and varied snapshots into the lives and histories of museums and of those associated with them, while at the same time asking deep questions of agency, knowledge, affect, narrative, object, and self. H-NET For the academic historian new to the debate on what makes history in museums, the variety of content, particularly in the latter half of this edited volume gives some sense of the complexity of the subject. There is much of interest that can also be garnered from the first part, not least in considering how museums and their collections came into being. REVIEWS IN HISTORY Informed, informative, and a highly recommended addition to academic library reference collections. MIDWEST BOOK REVIEW

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