Sandra Dudley - Narrating Objects, Collecting Stories

Narrating Objects, Collecting Stories

Narrating Objects, Collecting Stories is a wide-ranging collection of essays exploring the stories that can be told by and about objects and those who choose to collect them. Examining objects and collecting in different historical, social and institutional contexts, an international, interdisciplinary group of authors consider the meanings and values imputed to objects and the processes and implications of collecting. This includes considering the entanglement of objects and collectors in webs of social relations, value and change, object biographies and the sometimes conflicting stories that things come to represent and the strategies used to reconstruct and retell the narratives of objects. The book includes considerations of individual and groups of objects, such as domestic interiors, novelty teapots, Scottish stone monuments, African ironworking, a postcolonial painting and memorials to those killed on the roads in Australia and elsewhere. It also contains chapters dealing with particular collectors including Charles Bell and Beatrix Potter and representational techniques.

Sandra H. Dudley is Senior Lecturer in the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester. Recent books include Materialising Exile: material culture and embodied experience among Karenni refugees in Thailand (2010) and Museum Materialities (ed., 2010).

Amy Jane Barnes has recently completed doctoral research on the collection, interpretation and display of visual culture of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in contemporary British museums (University of Leicester 2009).

Jennifer Binnie is currently a PhD student at the University of Leicester, looking at the impact which art within museums and galleries may have upon wellbeing.

Julia Petrov is a PhD student in the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester. Her project traces the development of dress exhibitions in museums in England and North America over the twentieth century.

Jennifer Walklate is a PhD student in the School of Museum Studies, University of Leicester. Her AHRC-funded research explores and compares the production of temporal experiences in museums and works of literature.

Narrating Objects, Collecting Stories

Essays in Honour of Professor Susan M. Pearce

Edited by Sandra H. Dudley,
Amy Jane Barnes, Jennifer Binnie,
Julia Petrov and Jennifer Walklate

First published 2012
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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2012 Sandra H. Dudley, Amy Jane Barnes, Jennifer Binnie, Julia Petrov and Jennifer Walklate for selection and editorial matter; individual contributions, the contributors.

The right of Sandra H. Dudley, Amy Jane Barnes, Jennifer Binnie, Julia Petrov and Jennifer Walklate to be identified as the author of the editorial material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

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ISBN: 978-0-415-69271-7 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-203-12012-5 (ebk)

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Amy Jane Barnes has recently completed doctoral research on the collection, interpretation and display of visual culture of the Chinese Cultural Revolution in contemporary British museums (University of Leicester, UK, 2009). Prior to this she was employed as Curatorial Assistant at the Percival David Foundation of Chinese Art (SOAS, London, UK).

Jennifer Binnie is currently a PhD student at the University of Leicester, UK, looking at the impact which art within museums and galleries may have upon wellbeing. She is funded by AHRC and the Art Fund. She has come from a background in psychology, with particular interest in colour and contour preference and childrens drawing.

Alexandra Bounia is Associate Professor of Museology at the University of the Aegean, Greece. Her current research concentrates on the history of women collectors in Greece from 1900 onwards. Her publications include The Collectors Voice: ancient voices , co-edited with Susan M. Pearce (2001), Collectors and Collections in the Ancient World: the nature of classical collecting (2004) and Behind the Scenes of the Museum: collections management in contemporary museums (2009).

Ann Brysbaert has a PhD in Archaeology/Archaeological Sciences. From 2004 to 2009 she was Lecturer and Programme Director for the Distance Learning Museum Studies programme at the University of Leicester, UK, where she now holds an honorary lectureship. Her ongoing research and current teaching position (DIKEMES-CYA) on ancient technologies uses a combined methodology of the chane opratoire and cross-craft interaction, and applies these methodologies to museum contexts and display strategies for prehistoric archaeological collections.

Vnia C. Carvalho is Professor of History at the University of So Paulo (USP), Brazil. Her research area is gender and domestic space. She is currently Head of the Collection and Curator Division of the Paulista Museum/USP and co-editor of the scientific journal Anais do Museu Paulista: histria e cultura material ( AMP ). Her publications include Gnero e Artefato (2008) and Gnero e cultura material: uma introduo bibliogrfica ( AMP , 2003).