The Library
History writing in a museum : practice, archives, art
Tools
Tools
Tools
Bardgett, Suzanne (2021) History writing in a museum : practice, archives, art. PhD thesis, University of Warwick.
|
PDF
WRAP_THESIS_Bardgett_2021.pdf - Submitted Version - Requires a PDF viewer. Download (753Kb) | Preview |
Official URL: http://webcat.warwick.ac.uk/record=b3880401
Abstract
My published work can be said to illuminate the kind of writing that emerges from the intersection of academic history and public history. The project-focussed nature of museum work means that the range of topics covered in my submission is varied and reflects the exigencies of working in a very public-facing national museum. As the person who led the creation of two exhibitions designed to provide a wider public understanding of the Holocaust and genocide, and consultant on a third related project, I was on a number of occasions asked to explain the issues and challenges of these initiatives, usually to conference audiences made up of other museum practitioners, as well as academics, and these interactions were a distinctive element in my work from 2000 to 2007. Opportunities for more focussed writing on historical topics arose in other settings, when, for example, the museum was a partner in a funded project or conference. These articles and chapters drew on close readings of items in the museum’s collections and often deployed either narrative or micro-historical approaches to put under scrutiny how a particular work of art or set of correspondence illuminated a historical
episode. Narrative and micro-history is therefore the kind of history I tend to practise and is a particularly apt approach within museums, where the telling of stories is central, as can be the arrival of a newly acquired artefact or an encounter with an individual who entrusts their past story to the museum. In the words of Claire Zalc and Tal Bruttman, writing in the context of Holocaust research, micro-history ‘grants renewed importance to individual practices and experiences’ – a phenomenon familiar to history museum curators whose daily work is concerned with human experience.3 For Zalc and Bruttman, ‘smaller spaces can better elucidate the complexities of decision-making…and ultimately provide more compelling insights into the events that contemporaries faced in their day-to-day lives’.4 The editing work undertaken for the ‘Beyond Camps and Forced Labour’ conference series also has micro-history at its core, diverse academics from across Europe producing chapters which illuminate recovered voices and experiences of those under threat from Nazi persecution.
| Item Type: | Thesis (PhD) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Subjects: | A General Works > AC Collections. Series. Collected works A General Works > AM Museums (General). Collectors and collecting (General) D History General and Old World > D History (General) P Language and Literature > PN Literature (General) Z Bibliography. Library Science. Information Resources > Z004 Books. Writing. Paleography |
||||
| Library of Congress Subject Headings (LCSH): | Books -- History -- Exhibitions, Historical materialism, Historiography, Museum exhibits, Museums -- Curatorship | ||||
| Official Date: | 28 April 2021 | ||||
| Dates: |
|
||||
| Institution: | University of Warwick | ||||
| Theses Department: | Department of History | ||||
| Thesis Type: | PhD | ||||
| Publication Status: | Unpublished | ||||
| Supervisor(s)/Advisor: | Earle, Rebecca ; Steedman, Carolyn | ||||
| Format of File: | |||||
| Extent: | 59 pages | ||||
| Language: | eng |
Request changes or add full text files to a record
Repository staff actions (login required)
 |
View Item |
