ARH 297 London Museums
With such spectacular sites as the British Museum, the National Gallery, the Tate Modern, the Natural History Museum, and the Victoria and Albert Museum, to name only a few, London is the greatest city for museum-going in the world. In this course, we will draw on London’s unparalleled resources to examine the history of museum-going as a cultural practice from the Renaissance to the present. Combining weekly visits to London museums with readings in museum history and theory, and addressing such hot-button topics as the ethics of imperial collecting and the economics of the contemporary art market, the course will help students become more informed museum-goers themselves, as they acquire a critical understanding of the various ways that museums have defined and performed their missions over time. In the process, they will have prepared themselves for a lifetime of pleasure and enlightenment derived from visiting museums. This course will be taught in London.