Teaching Museology, Understanding the Museum. On the Increased Need for Dialogue, Listening, and Observation (Voice From Łódź)

Abstract

The Author of the article assumes that museology, when taught as part of ethnological studies, holds a special and symbolic significance in the context of ethnographic museology – it is important and necessary. However, the text highlights several problems and dilemmas associated with teaching this subject. From the perspective of the selection of personnel for museums, radical changes within the discipline of ethnology itself in the last decades of the twentieth century have arguably been detrimental. The activities of ethnographic museums have faced criticism from anthropologically oriented researchers and theorists. To this day, collection programmes and exhibition narratives often do not correspond to the currents of contemporary anthropology. Another dilemma with staff training lies in the diverse nature of ethnographic museology, and the activities of museum professionals have become increasingly complex. Very broad qualification requirements used to be formulated for the people employed there. In the Author’s opinion, the training of museum staff at the Institute of Ethnology should be approached comprehensively. Competencies and knowledge relevant to museologists should be imparted across various subjects with different themes. It is also important for educators to recognise the potential value of their own classes (those without the museum in their names) for future museologists. It would be a good idea to organise regular meetings between museums and academia. Let us leverage membership in the Polish Ethnological Society, which encompasses various communities and has a museological section.

Keywords

• University of Łódź
• ethnology
• museology
• academic teaching
• study programs
• cultural institutions