RE:  Personal connections to history in museums

A great topic and good discussion started already.  

I've not seen anything specifically related to a definition of "personal
connection" though there are some studies out there that are decidedly
related to this idea in history in Cameron, C.M., & Gatewood, J.B.,
(2000). Excursions into the Un-Remembered Past: What People Want from
Visits to Historic Sites. Public Historian, 22(3), 107-127.  Their later
work (Cameron, C.M., & Gatewood, J.B., (2003). Seeking Numinous
Experiences In The Unremembered Past. Ethnology, 42(1), 55-72) goes more
into the "holy" experiences which may or may not be what you are terming
as personal connection. 

If your definition takes you more into the emotional route,
Csikszentmihalyi's early work (The Meaning of Everyday Things for
example) looked at the relationship between self and object.  And then
there's also the aesthetic route. Dewey's ideas of the aesthetic
experience are outlined in Art as Experience and Jacksons review of
Dewey (John Dewey and the Lessons of Art) goes into the concept of
intrinsic and extrinsic meaning with art, objects, etc.

Elee 
-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.-.- 
Elizabeth (Elee) Wood, Ph.D., 
Office: 317-274-7332 | Email: [log in to unmask]

> >> On 8/6/07 2:20 PM, "Dale Jones" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> >>> Hi -
> >>>
> >>> I am preparing a session at AASLH on personal connections to
> history in
> >>> museums and am looking for some working definitions, or better
yet,
> a
> >>> definition that comes out of relevant scholarship.   Many history
> museums
> >>> and sites now use some variant of "personal connections" or
> "connecting to
> >>> the past" in their mission statements, but I have found none that
> define
> >>> what they mean.
> >>>
> >>> Any thoughts?
> >>>
> >>> Thanks
> >>>
> >>> Dale Jones
> >>> Institute for Learning Innovation
> >>> [log in to unmask]

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