This course will be an introduction to the history and practices of art museums, taking advantage of the superb museums in Washington, DC. Through our discussions and visits, we will learn about museum operations, museum careers, ethical issues and current controversies. During the course, class members will be required to get themselves to a selected group of museums, galleries or exhibits four times. This class fulfills a requirement or the Art History major, and fulfills the Fine Arts credit for graduation.

OBJECTIVES. This course is designed to:

• Acquaint students with the broad range of Washington DC’s museums.
• Explain the behind-the-scenes of mechanics of art museums.
• Examine the public roles of museums in contemporary American society.
• Question the ways we think about our own and other cultures, and how we present them.
• Examine the phenomenon of collecting: practices, ethics, economics, legalities, and illegalities.
• Explore the management of cultural property worldwide, and its rapidly evolving international law.
• Prepare interested students for careers in museums and galleries.
• Improve our thinking, research, writing, and presentation skills, as in all humanities courses.

TEXTBOOKS, all available in the Johnson Center.

• Carol Duncan, Civilizing Rituals: Inside Public Art Museums. NY: Routledge, 1995.
• Jane R. Glaser & Artemis A. Zenetou, Museums, A Place to Work: Planning Museum Careers. NY: Routledge, 1996.
• Map: Michael Brown. Artwise Washington DC.  Streetwise Maps, rev ed,
  1996.  ISBN 093-503938-4.
• A photocopied reader, available in the Johnson Center bookstore.

COURSEWORK:

• Class attendance, with occasional in-class exercises.
• Assigned readings.
• Four self-guided visits to D.C. museums, each followed by a one-to-two page write-up.
• One short 3-4 pp. library research paper on current events and hot issues.  
• Weekly reading quizzes and a final exam.

HOW TO REACH ME:

My office is in the History Department, in Robinson B340, and I can often be found (frantic but approachable) in the Slide Library, Robinson B333.  Summer office hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 4:00 to 6:00, or by appointment. Phone: (703) 993-3770, or call the History/Art History Dept. office at (703) 993-1250.  Fax: (703) 993-1251.  Much better: send me e-mail: <lbutler@gmu.edu>.

• Attendance is necessary; much of the material will only be covered in our slide lectures.  You are responsible for getting notes, and for all consequences of missed classes.  Class participation will affect your grade, if it is conspicuously good, conspicuously lacking, or continually disruptive.  Because of the compressed class schedule, and the importance of class discussion, I will allow ONE unexcused absence only.  Each subsequent unexcused absence will result in your final grade being lowered one half grade.
• Classroom atmosphere.  Courtesy and common sense, please.  Talking to friends during lectures, wandering in and out, cell phones, and eating food are all badly distracting to everyone else.  Chronic chatterers and latecomers are disruptive, and will be asked to leave the classroom (University policy!).
• Written work is a major part of the course, and will count heavily towards your final grade.  Papers must be written in good formal English, with full documentation in a standard format such as Chicago or MLA.  Please submit papers typed, double-spaced, and proofread. Spelling and grammar count, of course. Badly written work will be downgraded, returned for a rewrite, or flunked, as I see most appropriate.  All students are expected to use word-processors with spell-checkers. Please feel free to ask me for help with your writing. For better help with writing, from simple questions to systematic help, please contact The Writing Center in Robinson I, Room A116. Call them at (703) 993-1200, or see their phenomenally good web page, at:  http://writingcenter.gmu.edu/ .
• Late written work: Papers are due in class on the day specified. Late papers will be lowered five points a day (not per class day; every day) during the week (Mon-Fri) and lowered ten points over a weekend.  Note that this makes even the best work “F” work after about ten days.  If you need an extension, you must ask for it before the due date, not on or after, if you want to avoid a penalty.  By the final exam, all missing work becomes F work.  Make-up finals and elaborate medical excuses will require verification with a physician's or assistant dean's excuse.  Sorry, but this is life.
• No email submissions of papers, except in special cases with my prior permission.  Sorry—I’ve tried—it causes too many problems.  Written work is due in hard copy in class on the due date. Papers will not be considered “on time” unless and until I receive them I hard copy.
• Learning disabilities will be accommodated as required according to University policies.  Learning disabilities must be documented by the Disabilities Support Services.  It is the student’s responsibility to get tested, present the documentation to me, and request accommodations in a timely way (i.e. not on the day of the test; not after-the-fact). For more information, call the GMU Disability Resource Center at (703) 993-2470, or visit their website at http://www.gmu.edu/departments/advising/dss.html  .
• Religious holidays.  I have planned this course according to the George Mason University calendar.  If you observe a religious holiday that the University does not, please let me know and I will make necessary accommodations for you (but not for the whole class).
• English as a Second Language:  If English is not your first language, I will be happy to help you do your best in the writing assignments--by previewing papers, offering extra help, that sort of thing.  But the final result must be good standard written English.  You may want to work with The Writing Center in Robinson I, Room A116. Call them at (703) 993-1200, or see their web page for English language help, at: http://writingcenter.gmu.edu/esl/index.html .  You may also want to work with the English Language Institute (ELI).  Call them at (703) 993-3664, or visit their website at http://mason.gmu.edu/~eli .
• Academic honesty is expected in all tests and writing.  Please respect the Honor Code, our classroom standards, your fellow students, and yourself.  The Honor Pledge will be required on all tests. Please report violations to the Honor Committee.   See the explanation of plagiarism in the guidelines for writing.

TESTS must be taken on the scheduled date. If there has been an emergency, it must be documented by a note from the dean’s office or your doctor. In those cases, there will be one make-up test given, probably during the subsequent class.  Tests will be graded by percentage. Grades will be calculated as follows:

• A= 100% to 93%, or 4.00
• A- = 92% to 90%, or 3.67
• B+  = 89% to 87%, or 3.33
• B = 86% to 83 %, or 3.00 
• B- = 82% to 80 %, or 2.67
• C+ = 79% to 77 %, or 2.33 
• C = 76% to 73 %, or 2.00
• C- = 72% to 70 %, or 1.67
• D= 60% to 66%, or 1.0
• F = below 60% and receives no credit

I may award a final A+ in rare instances: 4.0 average plus unusually good writing and class participation.

WRITTEN WORK will be judged as follows:

• A = Startlingly good, exceeding our expectations, and well-written.  Must be imaginative; NOT given for simply following directions.  Not awarded unless the writing itself is excellent.
• B = Good effort with a good result.  Competent, conscientious, followed the directions, got the point.
• C = Perfunctory; or, tried but missed the point; or, did something well but it wasn’t the assignment;  or good so far, but only part of the assignment; or, good idea but careless or sloppy; or, fine but messed-up documentation or no documentation of sources.
• D = Warning: accepted under protest.  Something awful happened.
• F = Unacceptable as college-level work..

Paper grades will be lowered for lateness, sloppiness, lack of proofreading, bad English, faulty or missing documentation of sources, faulty logic, or failure to follow directions for the assignment.

Late written work: Papers are due on the day specified.  Late papers will be lowered five points a day (not per class day; every day) during the week (Mon-Fri) and lowered ten points over a weekend.  Note that this makes even the best work “F” work after about ten days.  If you need an extension, you must ask for it before the due date, not on or after, if you want to avoid a penalty.  By the final exam, all missing work becomes F work. 

FINAL GRADES will be based on the numerical average of your paper grades, test grades, and class participation. Grades will be weighted thus:

• Four weekly quizzes: 5 % each, 20% total.
• Four museum write-ups: 10 % each, 40 % total
• Research project: 10 %
• Final exam:10%
• Class participation: 20%

Class participation grades will be determined as follows: Everyone will start out with an assumption of B, or 85%.  This will be raised for conspicuous participation in discussion, or lowered for conspicuous lack of participation.  Habitual absence (three times or more) will be construed as a conspicuous lack of participation indeed.  Disruptive or otherwise inappropriate classroom behavior will also result in a lowering of this grade.

Borderline grades may vary from strict numerical average if there is a pattern to grades over time (up or down) or if the final exam is flunked, or if major pieces of work are missing.   You may fail the course if you flunk the final exam plus one other major piece of work; or if two or more major pieces of work (worth 10%) are missing, regardless of average.

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TENTATIVE LECTURE SCHEDULE

Classes meet on Tuesdays and Thursdays, 7:00 to 10:00 PM, in the Fine Arts Building (Humanities II complex) Room B212.  Attendance and  participation are required, as noted above.   Reading assignments are given with each week’s topic; Duncan and Glaser & Zenetou refer to your textbooks by those authors.  The reader is the bound packet of photocopied readings, available in the college bookstore.

WEEK I: NATIONAL ART MUSEUMS

Tuesday, July 1:Introduction: National Museums of Art

Themes: History of museums, from Kunstkammer to National Gallery. National galleries and national pride.Creating “the canon” of art: great works and major media. Museums as social ritual.

No class on Thursday, July 3—Fourth of July holiday.

Reading:

• Duncan: 1. The Art Museum as Ritual; and 2. From the Princely Gallery to Public Art Museum: The Louvre Museum and the National Gallery, London.
• Glaser & Zenetou: Part I: The Museum World, Its Works and Wonders.

First museum itinerary assigned: The National Gallery and Natural History Museum.

Tuesday, July 8: Organization of a large art museum

Film: Louvre City.

Quiz on Week 1 reading and the first itinerary.

Thursday, July 10: Curators and collecting.

Film: Curator’s Choice

Reading for the week:

• Duncan: 3.Public Spaces, Private Interests: Municipal Art Museums in New York and Chicago.
• Glaser & Zenetou: Part II: Principles and Standards of Museums; and Part III: What Museum Workers Do: Theory and Practice.
• Reader: Michael Belcher, Exhibitions in Museums.Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991. Chapter 7: “Museum exhibition policy and planning,” 69-82.

Second museum itinerary assigned: Museums of Non-Western Art

Tuesday, July 15: Other people’s art: Representation and context.

Films:“The Art of the Dogon” and/or “The Eyes of Empire”

Reading for Tuesday:

• Glaser & Zenetou: Part V: Global Perspectives.
• Reader:
  • Michel Brent, “Faking African Art,” from Archaeology, Jan/Feb 2001, 26-32.
  • Susan Vogel, “Always True to the Object, In Our Fashion,” from Exhibiting Cultures, ed. Ivan Karp & Steven D. Lavine (Washington: Smithsonian, 1991), pp. 191-203.

Quiz on Week II reading and second itinerary.

Film: “Stolen Treasures of Cambodia”

Reading for Thursday, in the reader:

• Lawrence Kaye and Carla Main, “Law, Ethics and the Antiquities Market,” from  Asian Art and Culture: Preservation (Winter 1996), pp. 22-39.
• Jeanette Greenfield, The Return of Cultural Treasures, 2^nd ed. New York: Cambridge, 1995. Chapter 2: “The Elgin Marbles Debate,” 42-90. Frank Kuznik, “Harried Treasure.” Washington City Paper, Sept. 6, 1991, 16-20.

Third museum visit assigned: Small private museums.

Tuesday, July 22: The private museum

Themes: The museum as donor memorial. Bequests and conditions. Designing small museums. Adapting historic houses as public museums.

Quiz on Week III reading and third itinerary.

Reading:

• Duncan: 4: Something Eternal: The Donor Memorial
• Reader: C. Brown, W. Fleissig, and W. Morrish, Building for the Arts: A Guidebook for the Planning and Design of Cultural Facilities, rev. ed. Santa Fe: Western States Arts Federation, 1989. Chapter 10: Design Standards: Visual Arts, 139-162.

Thursday, July 24: Catch-up and discussion of research.

Fourth museum itinerary assigned: New art and new interpretations.

Tuesday, July 29: New voices, new museums

Themes: Innovative museums for new voices and new audiences. The future of the museum. Funding and controversies.

Reading:

• Duncan: 5. The Modern Art Museum, and Conclusion.
• Glaser & Zenetou: Part IV: Museum Careers, Where to Start; and Part VI: Views on the future in museums.
• Reader: Anne Higonnet, “A New Center: The National Museum of Women in the Arts,” Chapter 12 from Museum Culture: Histories, Discourses, Spectacles, ed. Daniel J. Sherman and Irit Rogoff.

Quiz on Week IV reading and fourth itinerary.

Thursday, July 31: Review and final exam.

Note: The final exam will be in class, open-book and open-note.

Thursday, July 3:  No classes: Fourth of July holiday.

Tuesday, July 8: Last day to add class, and last day to drop with no tuition liability.

Thursday, July 31: Final exam in class, normal class time.

The Supplementary Reader contains:

• Michael Belcher, Exhibitions in Museums.  Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991. Chapter 7: “Museum exhibition policy and planning,” 69-82.
• Michel Brent, “Faking African Art,” from Archaeology, Jan/Feb 2001, 26-32.
• C. Brown, W. Fleissig, and W. Morrish, Building for the Arts: A Guidebook for the Planning and Design of Cultural Facilities, rev. ed. Santa Fe: Western States Arts Federation, 1989.  Chapter 10: Design Standards: Visual Arts, 139-162.
• Jeanette Greenfield, The Return of Cultural Treasures, 2^nd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.  Chapter 2: “The Elgin Marbles Debate,” 42-90.
• Anne Higonnet, “A New Center: The National Museum of Women in the Arts,” Chapter 12 from Museum Culture: Histories, Discourses, Spectacles, ed. Daniel J. Sherman and Irit Rogoff.  (Media & Society 6). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994.
• Lawrence M. Kaye and Carla T. Main, “Law, Ethics, and the Illicit Antiquities Market,” from Asian Art and Culture, Winter 1996, 22-37.
• Frank Kuznik, “Harried Treasure.” Washington City Paper, Sept. 6, 1991, 16-20.
• Susan Vogel, “Always True to the Object, in Our Fashion,” from Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, ed. Ivan Karp and Steven D. Lavine. Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 1991,  191-204.