Museum Fatigue

Happy Birthday, Johnathan

July 3, 2020 by Museum Fatigue

Johnathan the tortoise turned 188 yesterday. The oldest living land animal—his life has spanned the deaths of every animal on the planet. The world into which he was born is unimaginable to us except as fiction. To put this in perspective, when he was born there were only 24 United States and the Civil War was still thirty years in the future. The last ship bringing enslaved people to the US wouldn’t set sail for another 28 years and the […]

Categories: Uncategorized • Tags: Anthropocene, tortoise

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Another Night of Curfew Has Been Announced.

May 31, 2020 by Museum Fatigue

Another curfew has been announced for tonight. I’m afraid this weekend has established habits of policing and response that could become normalized. What if the pandemic and the policing become for the 2020s what the Patriot Act and Homeland Security were for the period following 2001? Are we all going to become habituated to new policing regimes the way that we now instinctually shed our shoes at airport security? When there are no politics and no program for achieving a […]

Categories: COVID Spring

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Reading This Morning’s News

May 30, 2020 by Museum Fatigue

Waking up to read and see images of what happened last night. I’m still processing details, but once again I find myself thinking about the fact we are still in a pandemic. Seeing so many people so close together—even with masks I can’t help but think there is plenty of opportunity for transmission. Are we going to see a spike in COVID cases in the next week? Are the black and brown communities who have already disproportionately suffered from COVID […]

Categories: COVID Spring

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Concept for a Pandemic Graduation, May 2020

May 16, 2020 by Museum Fatigue

I’ve been talking to some of the seniors at my university and they are understandably sad that the arrival of the novel Coronavirus has destroyed their plans for the graduation ceremony they had imagined. After years of study and work, they naturally want to mark their accomplishment, and the transition to the next stage of their lives, with family and friends at a public ritual of recognition hosted by the institution that has shaped their lives. But how does one have […]

Categories: COVID Spring • Tags: class of 2020, graduation, Hamline University, pandemic

Keeping Class Real This Semester (and Perhaps Next Fall): Lessons From My Visual Anthropology Class

May 15, 2020 by Museum Fatigue

Yesterday afternoon, during my last session for this semester’s Visual Anthropology class, we had a summary conversation about the students’ experiences in our fractured pandemic semester. The students shared some interesting reflections on time and life and our class that were clearly divided into a before and after. Some of these comments offer valuable ideas for a possible Fall semester that is increasingly looking like it might be spent at least partially online. “Class Isn’t Real” Students at my small […]

Categories: Anthropology, Visual Anthropology, Visual Anthropology Class • Tags: Hamline University, Hamline University Anthropology Department, Midway Conversations, online teaching, remote teaching, Visual Anthropology Class

Some Thoughts at the End of Spring Semester 2020

May 14, 2020 by Museum Fatigue

Today is my last day of classes for Spring semester 2020. Some thoughts: In anthropology we discuss how time is a sociocultural construct, and up until now there were always those who didn’t quite understand what that means. The fact that the first week of classes back in February is a world away makes this point pretty clear. In a typical semester I conclude my courses with a wrap up and summary of how far we have come and the […]

Categories: Classes, COVID Spring • Tags: end of the semester

Can We Learn to Live Well in the Pandemic? Kill Debt.

May 6, 2020 by Museum Fatigue

This pandemic is historic, unprecedented and a national emergency. We are reminded of risk, danger and threats everywhere. Because the virus spreads easily, asymptomatically and has such a long incubation period we live at social distance in a constant state of anxiety. Because we have little testing and contract tracing we have few tools for knowing. This is getting old and acceptance is more difficult than disbelief in an environment with so little trust. It is, frankly, understandable to me […]

Categories: COVID Spring • Tags: Latour

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Making String Figures Amid the Troubles (on Zoom)

April 9, 2020 by Museum Fatigue

In Staying with the Trouble (2016), Donna Haraway offers a figure which combines a number methods of thinking thoughts and telling stories together in ways that emphasize a shared nature of giving and receiving, of participation, of crafting, tracing and following. They are ways of connecting across species and space together—that sometimes work, sometimes fail, are active and at times hold still. The figure, which she describes with the letters SF evokes multiple practices which address in imaginative and creative […]

Categories: Anthropocene, COVID Spring • Tags: Donna Haraway, SF, Staying with the Trouble, string figures

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Things to Remember From the COVID Spring #8: Everything is Haunted

March 31, 2020 by Museum Fatigue

Lots of folks are commenting on the way that “social distancing” is making them aware of other’s bodies and their relationship their own. This novel Coronavirus has required us to respond in novel ways. To keep six feet away from others is not something that can be done causally or covertly. It is a visual statement in every encounter: walking off the sidewalk to avoid someone, standing far back at checkout counters. We are now pushing away the world with […]

Categories: COVID Spring • Tags: bodies, Haunting, Space

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When This is All Over…

March 29, 2020 by Museum Fatigue

When this is all over I wonder how it will change our relationship to technology. Will this time of physical distance with social contacts pushed through machines move us to a stage of more comfort and more satisfaction with our digital lives? Or, will we be so tired of seeing and speaking and typing at a distance that when the all-clear arrives the first thing we will do is find others in person and hug them and grab their hand […]

Categories: COVID Spring • Tags: sociality, technology

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MUSEUM FATIGUE

Author Archives: Museum Fatigue

Happy Birthday, Johnathan

Another Night of Curfew Has Been Announced.

Reading This Morning’s News

Concept for a Pandemic Graduation, May 2020

Keeping Class Real This Semester (and Perhaps Next Fall): Lessons From My Visual Anthropology Class

Some Thoughts at the End of Spring Semester 2020

Can We Learn to Live Well in the Pandemic? Kill Debt.

Making String Figures Amid the Troubles (on Zoom)

Things to Remember From the COVID Spring #8: Everything is Haunted

When This is All Over…