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Literature


Rhizomatics (philosophy) .... As a mode of knowledge and model for society Deleuze and Guattari use the terms "rhizome" and "rhizomatic" (from Ancient Greek ῥίζωμα, rhízōma, "mass of roots") to describe theory and research that allows for multiple, non-hierarchical entry and exit points in data representation and interpretation. 

In A Thousand Plateaus, they oppose it to an arborescent (hierarchic, tree-like) conception of knowledge, which works with dualist categories and binary choices. A rhizome works with planar and trans-species connections, while an arborescent model works with vertical and linear connections. 

Their use of the "orchid and the wasp" is taken from the biological concept of mutualism, in which two different species interact together to form a multiplicity (i.e. a unity that is multiple in itself). 

Hybridization or horizontal gene transfer would also be good illustrations. 

As a model for culture, the rhizome resists the organizational structure of the root-tree system which charts causality along chronological lines and looks for the original source of 'things' and looks towards the pinnacle or conclusion of those 'things.' 

A rhizome, on the other hand, is characterized by ceaselessly established connections between semiotic chains, organizations of power, and circumstances relative to the arts, sciences, and social struggles.'

Rather than narrativize history and culture, the rhizome presents history and culture as a map or wide array of attractions and influences with no specific origin or genesis, for a 'rhizome has no beginning or end; it is always in the middle, between things, interbeing, intermezzo.' 

The planar movement of the rhizome resists chronology and organization, instead favoring a nomadic system of growth and propagation. .

"In this model, culture spreads like the surface of a body of water, spreading towards available spaces or trickling downwards towards new spaces through fissures and gaps, eroding what is in its way. 

The surface can be interrupted and moved, but these disturbances leave no trace, as the water is charged with pressure and potential to always seek its equilibrium, and thereby establish smooth space."

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ABOUT MUSEUM GOVERNANCE .... In Museum Governance, Marie Malaro addresses a range of issues facing museum administrators and trustees, arguing they can handle their duties intelligently only if they understand two points—why our country sustains a nonprofit sector and what constitutes trusteeship. Armed with this knowledge, trustees can sort out knotty problems relating to corporate sponsorship, entrepreneurial activities, and fundraising in ways that preserve the integrity of the nonprofit. Malaro first explores the principles of nonprofit governance. She explains the purpose and use of professional codes of ethics and offers practical advice about board education and its role in fostering the long-term health of an organization. She then applies these principles to situations frequently confronting trustees, discussing how to set collection strategies, balance mission and entreprenurial ventures, handle deaccessioning, maintain effective board oversight, approach automation, and deal with repatriation requests.  

Published by Smithsonian Books Jul 17, 1994 | 192 Pages | 6 x 9 | ISBN 9781560983637

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Read Online Welcome to the online version of The Participatory Museum. This is the complete text of the book, but it lacks the attractive formatting of the paperback and the PDF. Also, you can comment on it. Please do. This book is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial license. Please consult  this copyright page to learn how you can use and share this material.

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on curators’ frustrations with (what we call) ‘the profusion struggle’. Curators express the difficulty of collecting the material culture of everyday life when faced with vast existing collections. They explain that these were assembled, partly, from anxiety to gather up what was anticipated at risk of being lost. Unlimited accumulation, and keeping everything forever, are being called into question, especially through the disposal debate which has gained in intensity over the past three decades. While often with some reluctance, setting limits by slowing collecting or even reducing collections through targeted letting go, or what is variously called ‘deaccessioning’, ‘disposing’, and ‘refining’ collections, are undertaken to facilitate ongoing collecting, amongst other goals. To respond to curatorial interest in strategies for addressing profusion, we draw on ethnographic fieldwork looking predominantly at social history museums in the United Kingdom, to consider whether ideas borrowed from beyond museums might be of use. We explore the possible implications of economic concepts of ‘de-growth’ – partly by seeing the ways that these ideas are already practiced, but also by examining curators’ own enthusiasms and reservations. To develop more sustainable collecting practices, we argue that ideas of collections ‘growth’ might be usefully reframed.


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Walk into any European museum today and you will see the curated spoils of Empire. They sit behind plate glass: dignified, tastefully lit. Accompanying pieces of card offer a name, date and place of origin. They do not mention that the objects are all stolen.

Few artefacts embody this history of rapacious and extractive colonialism better than the Benin Bronzes - a collection of thousands of brass plaques and carved ivory tusks depicting the history of the Royal Court of the Obas of Benin City, Nigeria. Pillaged during a British naval attack in 1897, the loot was passed on to Queen Victoria, the British Museum and countless private collections.

The story of the Benin Bronzes sits at the heart of a heated debate about cultural restitution, repatriation and the decolonisation of museums. In The Brutish Museums, Dan Hicks makes a powerful case for the urgent return of such objects, as part of a wider project of addressing the outstanding debt of colonialism.

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Format Paperback Pages 278 ... ISBN 9781921248016 ... Release date March 1, 2014 Dark Emu Bruce Pascoe 

WINNER – 2016 Indigenous Writer's Prize in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards ... WINNER – 2016 Book of the Year in the NSW Premier's Literary Awards ... SHORTLISTED – 2014 History Book Award in the Queensland Literary Awards ... SHORTLISTED – 2014 Victorian Premier's Award for Indigenous Writing 

 Dark Emu argues for a reconsideration of the 'hunter-gatherer' tag for pre-colonial Aboriginal Australians and attempts to rebut the colonial myths that have worked to justify dispossession. Accomplished author Bruce Pascoe provides compelling evidence from the diaries of early explorers that suggests that systems of food production and land management have been blatantly understated in modern retellings of early Aboriginal history, and that a new look at Australia's past is required.

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If you think art history has to be pale, male and stale - think again.

Should museums be made to give back their marbles? Is it even possible to 'decolonize' our galleries? Must Rhodes fall?

How to deal with the colonial history of art in museums and monuments in the public realm is a thorny issue that we are only just beginning to address. Alice Procter, the creator of the Uncomfortable Art Tours, provides a manual for deconstructing everything you thought you knew about art history and tells the stories that have been left out of the canon.

The book is divided into four chronological sections, named after four different kinds of art space: The Palace, The Classroom, The Memorial and The Playground. Each section tackles the fascinating, enlightening and often shocking stories of a selection of art pieces, including the propaganda painting the East India Company used to justify its rule in India; the tattooed Maori skulls collected as 'art objects' by Europeans, and works by contemporary artists who are taking on colonial history in their work and activism today.

The Whole Picture is a much-needed provocation to look more critically at the accepted narratives about art, and rethink and disrupt the way we interact with the museums and galleries that display it.

About the Author

Alice Procter is a historian of material culture and the creator of Uncomfortable Art Tours. She curates exhibitions, organizes events, makes podcasts and writes things under the umbrella of The Exhibitionist. Procter studied at University College London, and her academic work concentrates on the intersections of postcolonial art practice and colonial material culture, settler storytelling, the concept of whiteness in the 18th and 19th centuries, the curation of historical trauma, and myths of national identity. She has appeared on BBC Radio 4's Front Row, and her work has been featured in the New York Times, the Guardian, the New Statesman, Aljazeera.com and The Times. She is Australian but grew up in Hong Kong and London.

  • Published: 13 June 2016 ... ISBN: 9781612195186
  • Imprint: Melville House Pages: 272

From the author of the international bestseller Debt: The First 5,000 Years comes a revelatory account of the way bureaucracy rules our lives  

Where does the desire for endless rules, regulations, and bureaucracy come from? How did we come to spend so much of our time filling out forms? And is it really a cipher for state violence?

To answer these questions, the anthropologist David Graeber—one of our most important and provocative thinkers—traces the peculiar and unexpected ways we relate to bureaucracy today, and reveals how it shapes our lives in ways we may not even notice…though he also suggests that there may be something perversely appealing—even romantic—about bureaucracy.

Leaping from the ascendance of right-wing economics to the hidden meanings behind Sherlock Holmes and Batman, The Utopia of Rules is at once a powerful work of social theory in the tradition of Foucault and Marx, and an entertaining reckoning with popular culture that calls to mind Slavoj Zizek at his most accessible.

An essential book for our times, The Utopia of Rules is sure to start a million conversations about the institutions that rule over us—and the better, freer world we should, perhaps, begin to imagine for ourselves.

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The Tamar Estuary and Esk Rivers Program presents a video series on kanamaluka/Tamar - Working Together for Healthy Waterways. Hear from Peter Cox, Launceston Geography and Geomorphology expert about the natural history of kanamaluka/Tamar. ... Watch the video here




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