Museums as Keepers of Future, part 2.

July 6, 2020 by usfmuseumstudiesblog

by Laure Rigaud-Soares (MA, 2020) Editors’ Note:  Today, we continue our series on Museums as Keepers of the Future, with a report on the second part of Elizabeth Merritt’s public talk at University of San Francisco on February 25, 2020.  This post focuses on how museums can seek to tell stories of the future. Museums do not say with certitude how the future will be. Through exhibitions, they only help people understand the different possibilities and make them apprehend that […]

Categories: Forums, Museum Studies • Tags: free lecture, marketing, professional development

Museums As Keepers of the Future, part 1

June 29, 2020 by usfmuseumstudiesblog

by Laure Rigaud-Soares (MA, 2020) Editors’ note:  Over the next three weeks, we are pleased to present a three-part blog post based on an exciting public event hosted by USF’s Museum Studies’ program on Tuesday, February 25, 2020, only a few days before San Francisco’s mandatory shelter-in-place went into effect. We were so fortunate that Elizabeth Merritt, Director of the Center for the Future of Museums at the American Alliance of Museumswas able to  come from Washington, D.C. to the University […]

Categories: Forums, Museum Studies • Tags: community, professional development, research, USF Museum Studies

Intern-connectivity: SFO Museum

June 22, 2020 by usfmuseumstudiesblog

by Nikki Christensen (MA, 2020) Me: Yeah, I’ve been working for years as a Product Marketer/Brand Director in gaming and I’ve decided to hit Ctrl-Alt-Del on my professional life. The goal is to restart my career in the Museum field. Not me: Wow. So, you’re going to help museums better market themselves? Me: No. No. No. Not me: Huh. So, you’re going to be a curator then? Me: No. I don’t think so? Actually, I’m not quite sure what I […]

Categories: Alumni, internships, Museum Studies • Tags: California history, collections, conservation, internships, professional development, USF Museum Studies

Intern-connectivity: National Museum of the American Indian

June 15, 2020 by usfmuseumstudiesblog

Editors’ note: Despite the disruptions of the COVID-19 pandemic, University of San Francisco Museum Studies graduate students are continuing to contribute to the museum community through online internships at a diverse array of sites. The National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, D.C., for example, is benefiting from the work and vision of Kaylee Pinola (Kashia Band, Pomo).  We are pleased to repost the Smithsonian Institution’s announcement about Kaylee’s summer 2020 internship. **** Santa Rosa, California native Kaylee Pinola […]

Categories: internships, Museum Studies • Tags: internships, students, USF Museum Studies

If not us, who? If not now, when?: America’s crisis in racial justice

June 8, 2020 by usfmuseumstudiesblog

Editors’ Note: Dr. Clarence B. Jones, the director of the University of San Francisco Institute for Nonviolence and Social Justice, recently penned the following statement which addresses the crisis in racial justice following the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Dr. Jones served as speechwriter and counsel to Dr. Martin Luther King from 1960 – 1968. In 1963, Dr. Jones assisted Dr. King in drafting his celebrated “I Have a Dream” speech. We are re-posting his statement in its entirety […]

Categories: Forums, Social Justice • Tags: community, history, law, social justice, USF faculty

Unprecedented? Pandemics Past and Present

June 1, 2020 by usfmuseumstudiesblog

by Karen Fraser, University of San Francisco Faculty Each spring semester, USF’s undergraduate Museum Studies class collaborates to organize an exhibition in the Donohue Rare Book Room in Gleeson Library. In March 2020, we were heading into the halfway point of the project, featuring artists’ books of California landscape imagery, when the shelter-in-place order was issued for the San Francisco Bay Area. Faculty rushed to transition to teaching online, while students hurriedly packed up their dorm rooms and apartments and […]

Categories: Community, Exhibits, Museum Studies • Tags: Gleeson Library, rare books, research, students, technology, USF faculty

Anna Halprin and the Museum of Performance and Design

May 25, 2020 by usfmuseumstudiesblog

by Hannah Baldwin, MA 2020 The Museum of Performance and Design is the home to the Anna Halprin Digital Archive, a great resource for everyone interested in one of the giants of postmodern dance.  Anna Halprin is a dancer and choreographer who pioneered experimental danceforms from the late 1950’s mostly through the 1990’s in San Francisco. She is now 98 years old and still continues with her work, which remains ground-breaking and relevant.  In fact, a documentary about her was released in […]

Categories: internships, Museum Studies • Tags: archives, California history, collections, performance art, students, technology, USF Museum Studies

USF Museum Studies Graduate Association wins 2020 Leadership and Engagement Award

May 18, 2020 by usfmuseumstudiesblog

We are pleased and proud to announce that on May 8, 2020, USF’s Office of Student Leadership and Engagement, Division of Student Life announced that the Museum Studies Graduate Association (MSGA) has been selected as the recipient of this year’s Graduate Student Organization of the Year Award.  And on top of that, our very own Professor Nathan Dennis has been honored with the Graduate Student Organization Advisor of the Year Award!   This well-deserved recognition honors MSGA as one of the strongest, most active, […]

Categories: Alumni, Community, Museum Studies • Tags: community, professional development, USF faculty, USF Museum Studies

Intern-connectivity: Textile Conservation at the deYoung Museum

May 4, 2020 by usfmuseumstudiesblog

by Adelle Kincel (MA, 2019) Fashion has become a hugely popular attraction in exhibitions in recent years. Garments are as close to a physical embodiment of the past as we can visualize: it is easy for us to look at a piece of clothing and imagine the living, breathing body that wore it. Our imagination can take root in a garment, and we can begin to understand the historical period in which its wearer lived, their economic status or social […]

Categories: Alumni, internships, Museum Studies • Tags: collections, conservation, internships, textiles, USF Museum Studies