Concentration distribution: Approved for Museum Studies Minor Electives

This course explores the meaning of objects collected around the world. People have always felt a connection to objects, but why do people collect? What ideas existed and exist in different cultures, places and times about the economic and sentimental value of items, and about the positive and negative energy of material objects? Through a focus on the lives of collectors and the social life of things this course examines the place of objects and practices of collecting inside and outside museums. We begin by focusing on objects that travel or were brought home by explorers, merchants and scientists, including the objects people took with them in the processes of (forced) migration, crisis, and seeking refuge. Then we turn our attention to everyday objects of value and ask what is considered, and by whom, as an object of value to preserve for themselves and/or for next generations in living rooms, attics, basements, but also places of worship, courtrooms and parks? And what is thrown out as useless, invaluable or even harmful? Finally, we turn to the question of why some objects end up in museums and others do not. How do curators make these decisions and what are the changing ideas about what belongs in a museum? While exploring these questions we will “meet”—making use of museums collections, paper archives, and oral history—amateur and professional collectors, hoarders and minimalists, preppers and recyclers. The course material will span from early-modern cabinets of curiosities to Marie Kondo; from pre-modern gravesites to contemporary doomsday bunkers.