Università Roma Tre

Course title: The Museum in the contemporary debate: traditions and contradictions

Never as intensely as today, and at any latitude in the World, the museum institution is at the center of a debate that constantly questions its traditional status as a place of conservation, study and protection of collections. This course aims to offer a broad overview of the museum and of the Museum Studies (definition, statute, structure, services, spaces, professions) and to analyze some themes dear to Critical Museology, such as decolonization, delocalization, the development of museums of memory and human rights, the relationship with social and economic sciences, etc. The second part of the course will take place in the form of seminars conducted in the museums by students based on individual research. Numerous inspections are planned in the Roman museums.

To pass the exam, the student must demonstrate that he/she has studied in depth:

a) at least one of the following texts:
A Companion to Museum Studies, a cura di S. Macdonald, Malden, Mass., Blackwell, 2006
L. Cataldo, M. Paraventi, Il Museo oggi, Modelli museologici e museografici nell'era della digital transformation, Milano Hoepli 2023


b) at least one of the following texts:
The Curation and Care of Museum Collection, a cura di B.A. Campbell, Ch. Baars, London ; New York, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2019
The contemporary Museum: shaping Museums for the Global Now, a cura di S. J. Knell, London, New York, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2019
M.T. Fiorio, Il museo nella storia. Dallo “studiolo” alla raccolta pubblica, Milano, Mondadori, 2011
F. Haskell, The ephemeral museum. Old master painting and the rise of the art exhibition, New Haven, Yale University Press, 2000 (trad. it. La nascita delle mostre. I dipinti degli antichi maestri e l’origine delle esposizioni d’arte, Milano-Ginevra, Skira, 2008
S. Costa, D. Poulot, M. Volait (a cura di), The period rooms: allestimenti storici tra arte, collezionismo e museologia, Bologna, Bononia University Press, 2016
M. Ferretti e A.Buzzoni, Musei, in Capire l'Italia. Il Patrimonio storico-artistico, TCI, Milano 1979, pp. 112-131.
S. Verde, Le belle arti e i selvaggi, la scoperta dell’altro, la storia dell’arte e l’invenzione del patrimonio culturale, Venezia, Marsilio, 2019
P.C. Marani, R. Pavoni, Musei, Trasformazioni di un'istituzione dall'età moderna al contemporaneo, Venezia, Marsilio, 2006
M.V. Marini Clarelli, Che cos’è un Museo, Carocci, Roma 2005
Musei italiani del dopoguerra (1945-1977). Ricognizioni storiche e prospettive future, a cura di Valter Curzi, Milano, Skira, 2022.
D. Poulot, Musei e museologia, Jaka book, 2008
D. Jallà, Il museo contemporaneo, nuova edizione aggiornata, Torino Utet 2004
A. Mottola Molfino, Il libro dei musei, Torino, Allemandi, 1998
R. Fontanarossa, Collezionisti e musei. Una storia culturale, Torino, Einaudi, 2022

c) the dossier of articles that will be made available during the course and published on the teacher's bulletin board;

d) he or she must also have visited and analyzed spaces and services of the following Roman museums:
- Musei Capitolini
- Musei Vaticani
- Galleria Nazionale d’arte antica di Palazzo Barberini
- Galleria Nazionale d’arte antica di Palazzo Corsini
- Galleria Spada
- Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Venezia
- Museo di Roma
- Museo Napoleonico
- Museo Mario Praz
- Museo della Centrale Montemartini
- Museo Nazionale Romano
- Museo delle Civiltà
- Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna
- MAXXI
- MACRO
- Palazzo Merulana

In addition to what is indicated here, the non-attending student will have to choose and study two further texts from points a) and / or b).