Research Catalog

Title

Our lives : collaboration, Native voice, and the making of the National Museum of the American Indian / Jennifer A. Shannon.

Author

Shannon, Jennifer A.

Publication

• Santa Fe, New Mexico : SAR Press, [2014]
• ©2014

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xvii, 254 pages : illustrations, maps; 26 cm.

Summary

In 2004 the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) opened to the general public. This book, in the broadest sense, is about how that museum became what it is today. For many Native individuals, the NMAI, a prominent and permanent symbol of Native presence in America, in the shadow of the Capitol and at the centre of federal power, is a triumph. At the grand opening, the museum's main message was We are still here. This message was most directly displayed in Our Lives: Contemporary Life and Identities, one of the NMAI's inaugural exhibitions and the main focus of this book. Ultimately, this is a record of the sincere efforts - and conflicts and triumphs - experienced by those who planned, developed, and constructed the NMAI's inaugural exhibitions. It is a narrowly focused snapshot of a particular kind of curatorial practise. It is also an account of many different kinds of people struggling to do their best under the weight of a monumental task: to represent all Native peoples of the Americas in the first institution of its kind, a national museum dedicated to the first peoples of the hemisphere. --

Series Statement

School for Advanced Research resident scholar series

Uniform Title

• Project Muse UPCC books.
• School for Advanced Research resident scholar series.

Subject

• National Museum of the American Indian (U.S.) > History
• National Museum of the American Indian (U.S.)
• Indians of North America > Museums > History. > Washington (D.C.)
• Indians of North America > Museums
• Washington (D.C.)

Genre/Form

• History
• History.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (pages 228-243) and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Preface: Who killed curatorial? -- Anticipation -- Our lives -- Bureaucracy -- Expertise -- Authorship -- Exhibition -- Reception -- Reflection -- Epilogue: Listening to our ancestors -- Appendix A. Who's who : the people in this book -- Appendix B. Main messages of the our lives gallery -- Appendix C. Mission statement and goals of the National Museum of the American Indian.

ISBN

• 9781938645273 (pbk.)
• 1938645278 (pbk.)

LCCN

^^2013034046

OCLC

• 856861492
• SCSB-11885196

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library