Social Practices in Museums: Near and Middle Eastern Historical Dimensions

A modern museum evokes a certain imaginary, with a history going back to private and less systematic collections, such as cabinets of curiosities. Stimulated by European Enlightenment ideas, the modern museum developed into a semi-public institution regulated by modern nation states in the 19th c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Handling Religious Things. The Material and the Social in Museums (Band 05)
Main Author: Beinhauer-Köhler, Bärbel
Format: Book Chapter
Language:English
Published: Philipps-Universität Marburg 2022
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Summary:A modern museum evokes a certain imaginary, with a history going back to private and less systematic collections, such as cabinets of curiosities. Stimulated by European Enlightenment ideas, the modern museum developed into a semi-public institution regulated by modern nation states in the 19th century. Unlike cabinets of curiosities, modern museums exhibit objects in order to convey certain ideas and systems of knowledge.1 To contribute to the general debate on what makes a museum, this paper will focus on the history of Near and Middle Eastern institutions, considering socio-material practices that are normally thought to characterise modern museums. The paper is inspired by recent studies that have successfully traced certain markers of modernity, such as individuality, secularity, or atheism, to pre-modern times and non-European regions.
Physical Description:14 Pages
DOI:10.17192/es2022.0086