Universität Wien
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240022 VS Decolonizing the Museum: Provenance research and the politics of restitution (3.2.4) (2023S)

4.00 ECTS (2.00 SWS), SPL 24 - Kultur- und Sozialanthropologie
Continuous assessment of course work

Participation at first session is obligatory!

The lecturer can invite students to a grade-relevant discussion about partial achievements. Partial achievements that are obtained by fraud or plagiarized result in the non-evaluation of the course (entry 'X' in certificate). The plagiarism software 'Turnitin' will be used for courses with continuous assessment.
Moodle

Registration/Deregistration

Note: The time of your registration within the registration period has no effect on the allocation of places (no first come, first served).

Details

max. 20 participants
Language: English

Lecturers

Classes (iCal) - next class is marked with N

If possible, the course is to be conducted in presence. Due to the respective applicable distance regulations and other measures, adjustments may be made.

  • Friday 03.03. 16:45 - 18:15 Seminarraum D, NIG 4. Stock
  • Friday 10.03. 16:45 - 18:15 Seminarraum D, NIG 4. Stock
  • Friday 17.03. 16:45 - 18:15 Seminarraum D, NIG 4. Stock
  • Friday 24.03. 16:45 - 18:15 Seminarraum D, NIG 4. Stock
  • Friday 31.03. 16:45 - 18:15 Seminarraum D, NIG 4. Stock
  • Friday 21.04. 16:45 - 18:15 Seminarraum D, NIG 4. Stock
  • Friday 28.04. 16:45 - 18:15 Seminarraum D, NIG 4. Stock
  • Friday 05.05. 16:45 - 18:15 Seminarraum D, NIG 4. Stock
  • Friday 12.05. 16:45 - 18:15 Seminarraum D, NIG 4. Stock
  • Friday 19.05. 16:45 - 18:15 Seminarraum D, NIG 4. Stock
  • Friday 26.05. 16:45 - 18:15 Seminarraum D, NIG 4. Stock
  • Friday 02.06. 16:45 - 18:15 Seminarraum D, NIG 4. Stock
  • Friday 09.06. 16:45 - 18:15 Seminarraum D, NIG 4. Stock
  • Friday 16.06. 16:45 - 18:15 Seminarraum D, NIG 4. Stock
  • Friday 23.06. 16:45 - 18:15 Seminarraum D, NIG 4. Stock
  • Friday 30.06. 16:45 - 18:15 Seminarraum D, NIG 4. Stock

Information

Aims, contents and method of the course

This course will introduce students to recent debates on decolonizing museums by focusing on two core aspects: provenance research to understand the biographies of objects and their rightful owners or authors, and secondly, processes of restituting/repatriating objects. Students will be introduced to strategies of decolonization and actively engage with the social life of objects, their pasts, and their futures. The course centers around the call by art historian Bénédicte Savoy and economist Felwine Sarr on the restitution of material culture looted during colonial times and what restitution must entail to become effective. Students learn to assess current debates on restitution and provenance research also in light of earlier concerns articulated by art historians, anthropologists, and post-colonial scholars. As part of the seminar, students will be introduced to provenance research by exercises and case studies in which they will have to conduct research on objects themselves, as well as discuss current – and formulate new – strategies for decolonizing museums. The course will also feature an excursion to the Weltmuseum Wien.

The course centers thematically on the following debates:
• The Repatriation of Ahayu:da Zuni War Gods
• Colonial Violence and the Benin Bronzes; Benin Dialogue
• Nazi-looted art and provenance research: the Gurlitt case; Washington Principles
• The Penacho at the Weltmuseum in Vienna: excursion and exchange on the Weltmuseum’s pronvenance research and restitution dialogues on the Penacho and the Cook collection
• The trade with artifacts: The “tribal art” auctions at the Dorotheum in Vienna
• The looting(s) of Palmyra: iconoclasms and trade through ISIS/Daesh
• Dialogues with communities: the Pitt Rivers Museum and contested objects
• Introduction to university collections
and other topics.

Assessment and permitted materials

The course will involve class discussions on readings, class-presentations, excursions and a final essay.
The course activities are divided into the following categories:

Active participation 32%
* participate in discussions (8%)
* take protocol of one class discussion (8%)
* museum excursion / visit (8%)
* submit notes on the museum excursion / visit (8%)

Presentation & Excerpt 32%
* give one class presentation (16%)
* provide one excerpt of a reading to be discussed in class (16%)

Final essay 36%
* submit an idea for a final essay (8%)
* submit a final essay (2500-3000 words) (28%)

Minimum requirements and assessment criteria

To pass the course, students have to reach at least 51% of all points, and all assignments need to be submitted in order to receive a grade .
1: 100 % bis 91 %
2: 90 % bis 76 %
3:75 % bis 61 %
4: 60 % bis 51 %
5: 50% and lower

Examination topics

Contents of the seminar, exursion, and readings.

Reading list

Exact list of relevant literature will be provided during the seminar.

Hicks, Dan. 2020. The brutish museums: The Benin bronzes, colonial violence and cultural restitution. London: Pluto Press.
Smith, L. T. 2012. Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples (2nd ed.). London, UK: Zed. Introduction, chapters 1–4.
American Association of Museums. 2005. Vitalizing memory : international perspectives on provenance research. Washington, DC: American Association of Museums.
Asad, T. 2002. From the History of Colonial Anthropology to the Anthropology of Western hegemony. In The anthropology of politics: A reader in ethnography, theory, and critique. Joan Vincent, ed. Pp. 133–42. Blackwell anthologies in social and cultural anthropology 3. Malden, Mass: Blackwell Publishers.
Clifford, J. 1997. “Museums as Contact Zones,” in Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century. (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 188-219, 360-63.
Collective, M. 2018. From Institutional Critique to Institutional Liberation? A Decolonial Perspective on the Crises of Contemporary Art *. October 168:227.
Demissie, F. 2009. Displaying colonial artifacts in Paris at the Muse Permanent des Colonies to Muse du Quai Branly. African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal 2:211.
Feigenbaum, G. 2012. Provenance : an alternative history of art: Los Angeles, Calif. : Getty Research Institute.
Lonetree, A. 2012. Decolonizing museums : representing native America in national and tribal museums. First peoples : new directions in indigenous studies. Chapel Hill: Chapel Hill : University of North Carolina Press.
Mirzoeff, N. 2017. Empty the museum, decolonize the curriculum, open theory. Nordic Journal of Aesthetics 25(53).
Petropoulos, J. 2017. Five Uncomfortable and Difficult Topics Relating to the Restitution of Nazi-Looted Art. New German Critique 44(130):125–42.
Sarr, F. 2016. Afrotopia. Paris: Philippe Rey.
Sarr, F., and B. Savoy. 2019. Die Rückgabe des afrikanischen Kulturerbes. 1. Auflage. punctum. Berlin: Matthes & Seitz Berlin.
Savoy, B. 2018. Die Provenienz der Kultur: Von der Trauer des Verlusts zum universalen Menschheitserbe. 3. Auflage. Fröhliche Wissenschaft 135. Berlin: Matthes & Seitz Berlin.
Savoy, B., C. Guichard, and C. Howald, eds. 2018. Acquiring cultures: Histories of world art on western markets. Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter.
Schorch, P. McCarthy,C., and Hakiwai, A. 2016. "Globalizing Māori Museology: Reconceptualizing Engagement, Knowledge, and Virtuality through Mana taonga." Museum Anthropology 39 (1):48–69.
Tinius, J. 2018. Awkward Art and Difficult Heritage: Nazi Collectors and Postcolonial Archives. In An anthropology of contemporary art: Practices, markets, and collectors. Thomas Fillitz and Paul van der Grijp, eds. Pp. 130–45. London: Bloomsbury Academic, an imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc.
Wood, P. 2012. Display, Restitution and World Art History: The Case of the ‘Benin Bronzes’. Visual Culture in Britain 13(1):115–37.

Association in the course directory

Last modified: Fr 03.03.2023 09:49