Objects of Power | MUSEUM FATIGUE

Mystery Object #27: Bible Faith Prosperity Handkerchief

February 27, 2019 by Museum Fatigue

Yesterday the mailman delivered an amazing mystery object right to my door. The moment I saw the envelope I was captivated. The outside of the letter informed me that the Holy Spirit had instructed someone to loan me something inside that would “turn things around for me!” It was something that I could use that would bring blessings. The back of the letter actually had a prayer printed on it that made reference to divine power, and a sealed prophecy […]

Categories: Mystery Objects, Objects of Power, Religion • Tags: bible faith prosperity handkerchief, handkerchief, prophecy, the gift

Mystery Object #25: Chinese Rockery Fountain

February 23, 2019 by Museum Fatigue

While visiting the Nanjing Confucius Temple area a few months ago with some visitors, I happened cross an incredible object. It was a water fountain for sale in a tourist shop at a dramatic discount. I was immediately captivated by its motion and drawn in by its fascinating and unconventional details. My companions initially thought that I was joking when I stopped to watch the fountain, and then after I inquired about its price, they realized I was serious. Look […]

Categories: China, Culture, Mystery Objects, Objects of Power, Uncategorized • Tags: water fountain

The Nanjing River Bridge Gets a Facelift for its 50th Anniversary

December 30, 2018 by Museum Fatigue

Two years ago, in the fall of 2016, the Nanjing River Bridge (南京长江大桥) was closed for extensive renovations. The first Chinese-constructed bridge across the Yangtze river, when it opened in December 1968 it was extolled as an example of China’s “spirit of self-reliance” (自立根生). Its opening was also the high point of the rustication program of “sent down youth” during the Cultural Revolution, and former zhiqing with whom I have worked over the years have commented on the significance of […]

Categories: China, Objects of Power • Tags: Cultural Revolution, Nanjing River Bridge

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Utopian Gestures

November 6, 2018 by Museum Fatigue

For some time I have been sensitive to the variety of utopias that I encounter here in China. Of course, by utopias, I don’t mean the comprehensive, complete, all-encompassing social utopias of the type that national leaders or religious figures imagine and occasionally attempt to realize on a large scale—like the communist one featured in Chinese propaganda imagery from the 1940s through the 1970s. Rather, I have been attracted to much smaller utopias—the attempted everyday utopias that are intentionally modest […]

Categories: Objects of Power, Utopian Gestures, Utopias and Dystopias

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Why I Love the Gideon Bible People

September 22, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

Every school year begins with the anxiety of meeting new people, starting new classes and getting into the rhythms of higher education. For nearly as long as I have worked at our school it has also been the time of the return of the Gideons. During the first few weeks of school, before the weather gets too chilly, a few of them usually visit campus for a few hours in late morning to mid afternoon. They stand on the sidewalks […]

Categories: Bodies, Objects of Power, Space • Tags: belief, freedom of speech, Gideon Bible, public space, Religion

Great Food. Offensive Stickers.

August 15, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

Just hours from completing this year’s summer road trip we enjoyed a great dinner in a midwestern diner at the Cedar Country Cooperative’s Exit 45 Restaurant. I enjoyed an open-faced hot turkey sandwich with mashed potatoes and gravy. I only wish I had space for a slice of their awesome pies! Check out links from their Facebook page for photos. The welcoming homestyle cooking, however, couldn’t have clashed more with the offensive messages of some of the stickers for sale […]

Categories: Consumption, Nationalism, Objects of Power • Tags: bumper stickers, Cedar Country Cooperative, Cenex, English Only, God, language, stickers, Wisconsin, xenophobia

Mummy or Corpse?

August 3, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

For years the Field Museum in Chicago has had the desiccated naked body of a child on display—at child viewing level no less—in their Inside Ancient Egypt exhibit. For over a decade I have used this as an example in lectures in my Museums, Exhibitions and Representations class as an example of the power of museums to reframe objects. Put a dead body on the street and the police will be looking for a murderer, put it behind glass in a […]

Categories: Bodies, Exhibitions and Fairs, Exhibitions and Representation, Museums, Objects of Power, Representation • Tags: Ancient Egypt, Chicago, children, corpse, display, Egypt, Field Museum, Field Museum in Chicago, mummy, museum object

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Patrick Wilken’s Biography of Claude Lévi-Strauss

May 8, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

I just finished a very enjoyable read—Patrick Wilcken’s biography Claude Levi-Strauss: The Father of Modern Anthropology. I picked it up used at a local Minneapolis Bookseller, Magers and Quinn late last week. Billed as “the first biography in English” of its subject, it was not something I could turn down. For years I have enjoyed teaching Tristes Tropiques in my Anthropology of Travel class—Pilgrims, Travelers and Tourists and I read some of his work in graduate school—but never really had an impression […]

Categories: Anthropology, Books, Nostalgia, Objects of Power • Tags: biography, Bororo, Brazil, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Mato Grosso, Musée du quai Branly, Patrick Wilcken, structural anthropology, Tristes Tropiques

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Bringthemback.org’s Cheeky Response to the Parthenon Marbles Controversy

January 26, 2014 by Museum Fatigue

If you want to see the Parthenon, you go to the Athenian Acropolis. If you want to see the sculptures, however, you have to go to the British Museum. For two hundred years this has been one of the most visible legacies of the “Age of Imperial Collection.” (Of course nearly every museum has objects collected from others under unequal power relations—“missing pieces” that match “holes” all over the world from which they were taken.) Last week a colleague of […]

Categories: Collecting, Empire, Museums, Objects of Power • Tags: Athenian Acropolis, Athens, Big Ben, bringthemback.org, Elgin Marbles, Parthenon, Parthenon Marbles, Parthenon Sculptures, the British Museum, vandalism

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Mystery Object #16: Moroccan Christmas Trees

December 31, 2013 by Museum Fatigue

This is a quick snap from my iPhone of some Christmas Trees I found for sale in the square at Meknes, Morocco. If I had had more time I would have taken a few more, but this does capture the range of styles–green ones with fruit and mysterious black ones with trunks. The one in the foreground on the right even has a light dusting of snow. I have no idea who might be buying these or where they were […]

Categories: Objects of Power, Uncategorized • Tags: Christmas Tree, Morocco