This edited volume critically engages with contemporary scholarship on museums and their engagement with the communities they purport to serve and represent. Foregrounding new curatorial strategies; it addresses a significant gap in the available literature; exploring some of the complex issues arising from recent approaches to collaboration between museums and their communities.The book unpacks taken-for-granted notions such as scholarship; community; participation and collaboration; which can gloss over the complexity of identities and lead to tokenistic claims of inclusion by museums. Over sixteen chapters; well-respected authors from the US; Australia and Europe offer a timely critique to address what happens when museums put community-minded principles into practice; challenging readers to move beyond shallow notions of political correctness that ignore vital difference in this contested field. Contributors address a wide range of key issues; asking pertinent questions such as how museums negotiate the complexities of integrating collaboration when the target community is a living; fluid; changeable mass of people with their own agendas and agency. When is engagement real as opposed to symbolic; who benefits from and who drives initiatives? What particular challenges and benefits do artist collaborations bring? Recognising the multiple perspectives of community participants is one thing; but how can museums incorporate this successfully into exhibition practice?Students of museum and cultural studies; practitioners and everyone who cares about museums around the world will find this volume essential reading.
#758824 in eBooks 2013-07-18 2013-07-18File Name: B00DOZXK8M
Review
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful. Same old same old from DabrowskiBy T. FlemingThough slightly less predictable than some of Dabrowskis monologue volumes; many of the monologues included in this book deal with conflicts outside of the character and are presented as a series of mostly questions to an unseen and occasionally undefined other character. As stated within the title; the volume is organized by "types" (players; geeks; addicts; troublemakers) feeding in to Dabrowskis biggest problem of stereotyping characters rendering the book useless for true character studies.The most interesting monologues have characters questioning themselves about subjects such as whether or not to ride with a drunk driver (pg 34); convincing a friend not to have sex (pg. 39); contemplating a gender change (pg 54); confronting parents who dont recognize the speakers worth (pg 55); acting stereotypical of the characters race (pg 71); or confronting an absent father (pg 78).Some of the monologues are humorous looks at the characters foibles such as self- aggrandizing (pg 14); gullibility (pg 16); acknowledging past mistakes (pg 36); or vanity (pg 27 and pg 64).The benefits of this volume are outweighed by Dabrowskis never-changing voice and diction and by her usual use of general stereotyping of teen cliques (Emo pg 29 or Popular pg 67). This book could be used for classroom rather than tournament use; but volumes such as More Short Scenes and Monologues for Middle School Students (Mary Hall Surface) or More Scenes and Monologs from the Best New Plays (Robert Ellis) would be more universally useful.0 of 0 people found the following review helpful. Very useful!By Nancy G.At first I was a little uncertain about how this book is structured---putting teens into "types"? But; I confess; its actually really useful. I use this book in Drama and English classes at two schools with very different cultures. One is very conservative; one is more urban. The material works for both environments. We change words and cultural references here and there from time to time. When students are looking for pieces to perform; they often use "types" as guidelines; I find myself using this book more than I would have expected. Also; weve had some really good discussions and projects come from using some monologues read in class. I would recommend. While every piece wont work for every person or school (of course); theres enough here (111 monologues) to find something that will work for everyone.