Illustrated with over fifty photos, Civilizing Rituals merges contemporary debates with lively discussion and explores central issues involved in the making and displaying of art as industry and how it is presented to the community. Carol Duncan looks at how nations, institutions and private individuals present art , and how art museums are shaped by cultural, social and political determinants. Civilizing Rituals is ideal reading for students of art history and museum studies, and professionals in the field will also find much of interest here.

Illustrated with over fifty photos, Civilizing Rituals merges contemporary debates with lively discussion and explores central issues involved in the making and displaying of art as industry and how it is presented to the community. Carol Duncan looks at how nations, institutions and private individuals present art , and how art museums are shaped by cultural, social and political determinants. Civilizing Rituals is ideal reading for students of art history and museum studies, and professionals in the field will also find much of interest here.

This book considers the material conditions in which the production and consumption of art takes place, looking at how art is presented to the community and how art museums are shaped by cultural, social and political determinants.

Using examples of indigenous models from Indonesia, the Pacific, Africa and native North America, Christina Kreps illustrates how the growing recognition of indigenous curation and concepts of cultural heritage preservation is transforming conventional museum practice. Liberating Culture explores the similarities and differences between Western and non-Western approaches to objects, museums, and curation, revealing how what is culturally appropriate in one context may not be in another. For those studying museum culture across the world, this book is essential reading.

In Exhibiting Contradiction, a leading scholar considers the way art museums have depicted--and continue to depict--American society and the American past. In closely focused and often controversial essays, Alan Wallach explores the opposing ideologies that drove the development of the American art museum in the nineteenth century and the tensions and contradictions characteristic of recent museum history.

Surveying over thirty different positions in the museum profession, this is the essential guide for anyone considering entering the field, or a career change within it. From exhibition designer to shop manager, this comprehensive survey views the latest trends in museum work and the broad-ranging technological advances that have been made. For any professional in the field, this is a crucially useful book for how to prepare, look for and find jobs in the museum profession.

Pulitzer Prize Finalist Silver Gavel Award Finalist “A sobering history of how American communities and institutions have relied on torture in various forms since before the United States was founded.” —Los Angeles Times “That Americans as a people and a nation-state are violent is indisputable. That we are also torturers, domestically and internationally, is not so well established. The myth that we are not torturers will persist, but Civilizing Torture will remain a powerful antidote in confronting it.” —Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell “Remarkable...A searing analysis of America’s past that helps make sense of its bewildering present.” —David Garland, author of Peculiar Institution Most Americans believe that a civilized state does not torture, but that belief has repeatedly been challenged in moments of crisis at home and abroad. From the Indian wars to Vietnam, from police interrogation to the War on Terror, US institutions have proven far more amenable to torture than the nation’s commitment to liberty would suggest. Civilizing Torture traces the history of debates about the efficacy of torture and reveals a recurring struggle to decide what limits to impose on the power of the state. At a time of escalating rhetoric aimed at cleansing the nation of the undeserving and an erosion of limits on military power, the debate over torture remains critical and unresolved.