The course is designed to introduce students to the history of museums and to curating practices. Classes will discuss the cultural position of the museum, the evolution of its function, the different forms of display, the historical developments of the act of collecting, the position of the visitor and the role of the curator. The primary purpose of the course is to provide students with a critical vocabulary for understanding how museums produce knowledge and structure the ways in which history, geography, cultural difference, and social hierarchies are mapped. Through a series of richly detailed case studies related to ancient and contemporary Rome museums, collections and institutions, classes will investigate the differences between the roles, the missions, the objectives, and the policies of conservation and exhibition-making in spaces, relating to modalities of thought. The course also intends to introduce the figure of the curator and its development from conservator and classifier to creative, critical protagonist of contemporary art culture. The course concludes with an overview of current debates around the contemporary need for museums, and large scale exhibition (such as Biennials and Triennials) and their perceived social functions.

Satisfies "the Modern and Contemporary World" core course requirement for Art History majors