School of Museum Studies

Museum Management: Politics and Policy

A new option module for the Museum Studies (full-time) & Art Museum & Gallery Studies programmes, from October 2009

This option will explore various issues to do with the politics of museum management and the politics of museum policy. The option is premised on a critical theoretical understanding of the politics of cultural management and policy. This theoretical grounding aims to enable a sophisticated understanding of the practical discussions which inform key contemporary cultural policy debates especially in relation to contemporary museum and heritage policy. This option has both a theoretical and practical orientation. It will involve analysis and discussion of cultural and museum theory and this will inform the analysis and discussion of 'gray' literature (museum policy, strategy, reports).

The option will involve detailed consideration of key issues in relation to museum politics and policy such as:

• what is the public value of the museum?
• should museums be used for instrumental ends or is this a betrayal of their real function?
• who is the museum visitor and who is the non-visitor?
• should museums be publically or privately funded?
• is it possible for museums to be true to maintaining and developing their own programming aims while balancing the requirements of their funders?

The module will highlight key museum management and policy debates from a variety of international jurisdictions as well as supranational policy contexts (e.g. UNESCO, ICOM). Students will be encouraged to report on, describe and discuss key policy debates and the assumptions which inform them in seminars, thus, adding to the international focus of the module.

The module will include lectures, workshops, seminars, individual research, small group activities, a study visit and an individual presentation to the group.

The module will draw on skills and knowledge learnt in other modules on the course and will enable you to recontextualise issues focused on or theories presented in other modules.

From 'Yes Minister' (BBC/YouTube)

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