Abstract of Museums working for Social Justice: Resonance and Wonder by Elena Gonzales, Ph.D., Brown University, May 2015 Museums can and do work for social justice, the equitable distribution of risks and rewards in society. The resulting questions – how do museums work for social justice? What is the state of that work? And how can we do it better or differently in the future? – drive my inquiry. My dissertation is a practical toolkit for curators today, surveying and analyzing contemporary tactics of curatorial work for social justice. I hypothesize that this kind of work requires both engaging visitors in critical thought and inciting an embodied emotional response in them. (Stephen Greenblatt’s essay, “Resonance and Wonder” provides the foundation from which I can argue that exhibitions for social justice will be more effective when they intentionally blend resonance (intellectual relevance) and wonder (embodied emotional experience). I use “embodied emotional response” instead of “wonder” because I want to emphasize the ample definition rather than as having to do only with positive emotions.) This dissertation uses and builds on memory and affect studies, cultural and institutional history, social justice studies, and cultural policy, applying them to museums. It contributes to museum studies as it evaluates many curatorial practices in a diverse set of institutions. Rather than reexamining museums’ ability to work for social justice, this project maps practices that can support this work and demonstrates ways to integrate and improve on existing curatorial tools. I propose curatorial work for social justice as one answer to the supposed contemporary crisis of relevance in museums. Unlike public programs and education, people inside and out of museums often treat exhibitions as sacred and somehow apolitical. Rectifying this misunderstanding is an important part of my work. Display produces and maintains ideology, so, regardless of a museum’s political position or supposed lack thereof, museums are cooks in society’s ideological kitchen. They either support extant ideologies or build alternate ones.
Gonzales, Elena L.,
"Museums Working for Social Justice: Resonance and Wonder"
(2015).
American Studies Theses and Dissertations.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.7301/Z00000FW
