Take a course in Museum Studies at HarvardEXT from the comfort of your chair


Harvard University Extension School 
Performing the Digital Museum
Fall Term 2016 CRN 15155
http://www.extension.harvard.edu/academics/courses/performing-digital-museum/15155 


Can the virtual museum be a stand alone or is it always a digital footprint of a physical museum? 
The museum experience is characterized by its penchant for authenticity and originality in a space that typically casts itself the role of encapsulating science and culture for posterity. Digital artifacts, in contrast, signal endless clone-ability and a built-in temporality, where the very intangibility of the digital object inevitably becomes a provocation to the museum ethos of materiality and stability. 

At the same time a museum can be performed in many different ways, resonating with the ideas expressed by sociologist Erving Goffman in The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life where he argues, perhaps in a Shakespearean way, that we present different aspects of ourselves in different situations as if we are actors (individuals) on stage and are performing in front of an audience.

This course will outline the numerous ways that information technologies, in spite of their built-in temporality, are located in the museum’s ecosystem and serve to augment, amplify, and disseminated the museum experience in numerous, propitious ways.  Performing the Museum in this way, serves propel collections, exhibitions and embedded knowledge into new spaces well beyond the museum wall; directly in the palm of your hand.

Online (live) web conference
Tuesdays, 1-3 pm (Boston time) – evenings in Europe

Start Date - Tuesday, August 30

Course Credit
4 credits

https://www.extension.harvard.edu/academics/courses/performing-digital-museum/15155
 
Pre-requisites
Professional, or personal interest in Museums and Museum culture and proficiency in online environments

Learning outcomes

Digital museum literacy
Fluency in reading a variety of museum websites, portals and platforms - either online or mobile - as they replicate, in miniature the digital footprint of a physical museum or act as an online focus of museum quality artifacts and exhibitions.

An intellectual skill-set from which to think critically about digital museums 
Critical thinking describes an intellectual discipline that enables conceptualizing, applying, analyzing, synthesizing, and/or evaluating information in order to critically reflect on concepts and norms, here in the case of the digital museum
For example: Can a digital museum be a stand-alone or is it always, a priori, a digital footprint of a physical museum? 

Online curatorial skill-set
In this course theory and practice go hand-in-hand as students are required to curate an online exhibition using Pinterest. This entails gathering resources, producing images and texts, and presenting them as a coherent whole.  Students are expected to work either on their own or in small groups to produce a thematically rich and comprehensive online exhibition for their final assessment.

Syllabus
http://my.extension.harvard.edu/course/ext-15155/2016

=========================================================
Important Subscriber Information:

The Museum-L FAQ file is located at http://www.finalchapter.com/museum-l-faq/ . You may obtain detailed information about the listserv commands by sending a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "help" (without the quotes).

If you decide to leave Museum-L, please send a one line e-mail message to [log in to unmask] . The body of the message should read "Signoff Museum-L" (without the quotes).