Exhibiting AbsenceMuseums display objects to reveal ideas. What should they do when they don’t have the objects they need?Dec 2, 20182Dec 2, 20182
Cabinets of CuriosityWhat they were, why they disappeared, and why they’re so popular nowOct 1, 20183Oct 1, 20183
Memorializing Disability: Lessons for MuseumsThe landscape of memory in the United States includes many memorials to those killed in our wars. It includes many fewer to those killed in…Aug 17, 2018Aug 17, 2018
Museums need collections and connectionsFirst, a cautionary tale: Prof. John Whipple Potter Jenks founded Brown University’s museum of natural history, ethnography and…Aug 10, 2018Aug 10, 2018
A toast, on the occasion of the opening of the Memory and the Museum conference[I was asked to offer a toast to open the 2018 Japan Society for the Promotion of Science forum on “Memory and the Museum.”]Jun 18, 2018Jun 18, 2018
The Rosa Parks HouseWaterfire Arts Center in Providence, Rhode Island, is hosting Ryan Mendoza’s Rosa Parks House Project. It features Mrs. Parks’s brother’s…May 23, 2018May 23, 2018
Teaching SkillIn the Fall semester, I taught a new course, a seminar for first-year students: “Skills: From the Medieval Workshop to the Maker Movement.”…Jan 9, 2018Jan 9, 2018
Museums can deal with Confederate MemorialsMoving Confederate memorials evicted from the public square to museums solves an immediate problem. It offers mayors and governors a way…Aug 30, 2017Aug 30, 2017