The Museum in the Cultural Sciences - Collecting, Displaying, and Interpreting Material Culture in the Twentieth Century

In early twentieth-century Berlin, Wilhelm von Bode sparked a controversy with his sweeping proposal to reorganize a group of the city’s museums. Debates about the role and structure of museums played out in 1907 and 1910 with two striking series of articles that appeared in the journal Museumskunde: Journal for the Administration and Technology of Public and Private Collections. The first was a six-part essay by Otto Lauffer on history museums, and the second was a ten-part piece by Oswald Richter regarding ethnographic museums. Together, they initiated a century of significant dialogue.

The Museum in the Cultural Sciences offers the first full English translations of these articles, which remain influential in conversations about the implications of art, historical, and ethnographic museums. They show how sophisticated the discussion of museums and museum display was in the early twentieth century and how much could be gained from revisiting these reflections today. Accompanied by short commentaries from museum professionals, these articles offer an intervention into and intensification of the current debate about the function and purpose of museums.

“"This well-curated book collects, prepares, and showcases two rare and vital samples of modern museological thought, studied and discussed by leading contemporary museum directors and historians of art and science, so as to better understand cultural history from its origins to its present decolonization."”

“This well-curated book collects, prepares, and showcases two rare and vital samples of modern museological thought, studied and discussed by leading contemporary museum directors and historians of art and science, so as to better understand cultural history from its origins to its present decolonization.”  -- Tristan Weddigen, director of the Bibliotheca Hertziana (Max Planck Institute for Art History in Rome) and professor of Modern Art History at the University of Zurich
“What are historical and ethnographic museums for, and what should they display? This fascinating book juxtaposes the insights and critiques of two early twentieth-century German curators with the reflections of contemporary museum professionals and historians, revealing that, at least since 1900, thinking about and with non-art objects has been a fundamental, if perennially controversial, part of world history and European self-consciousness.”  -- Suzanne L. Marchand, Boyd Professor of European Intellectual History at Louisiana State University
"Museums have always been good to think with and argue about. This is a book we have all been waiting for, bringing into the conversation the deep German tradition of museology, linked also to the latest discussions on indigenous perspectives and property. A wonderful cultural and intellectual achievement." -- Chris Gosden, Professor of European Archaeology at the University of Oxford

Peter N. Miller is dean and professor at Bard Graduate Center.

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