museum studies
Although the Department has no formal program in museum
studies, many of the
faculty have enormous experience and research and teaching interests in
museums, museum history, and the history of collections and exhibitions.
Virtually all the faculty have organized and curated exhibitions.
Professors Mark Meadow and Bruce Robertson co-direct the special initiative "Microcosms," an on-going system-wide research project that studies the relationship between the history of material collections, museums, and the university. In addition, Carole Paul has published extensively in the early history of Italian museums and collecting. Robertson, in turn, has spent much of his career balancing between museums and academia; most recently he has been Deputy Director for Art Programs and Chief Curator of the Center for the Art of the Americas at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Meadow is a specialist in the history of Kunst- and Wunderkammern in northern Europe with special interests in their ordering systems and practical utility.
Both Robertson and Meadow offer graduate seminars focused on museum studies and issues; many of the faculty (Miriam Wattles, Peter Sturman, and Jeanette Peterson) have offered seminars resulting in exhibitions, some with published catalogues. Graduate students have the opportunity to hold internships in their field of interest in a number of local museums from the UAM on campus to the Huntington in Los Angeles. Many of our graduates have gone on to successful museum careers. Our goal is to turn out graduates who are equally fluent in both the demands of museum and public scholarship, and of academic theory.
