Materiality – Museology – Knowledge

The work of the Research Focus will center around the interrelationship of three aspects: materiality, museology and knowledge. Their interaction will be both theoretically analyzed and experimentally realized. Museums are and have always been of fundamental importance for those academic disciplines concerned with artifacts, such as anthropology, archaeology as well as art and natural history. At the same time, the museum itself is an epistemic apparatus consisting of spatial parameters, structural guidelines along with material and aesthetic practices. The central focus is thus on the mutual relationships between object, space, practice and perception as they occur particularly in museums and universities.

The centerpiece of the Research Focus will be the close cooperation with several Munich museums including the Pinakothek der Moderne, the Museum Fünf Kontinente and Biotopia. Several practical units held within the collections are planned in order to examine closely the discipline frameworks for anthropology, archaeology as well as art and natural history.

Spokespersons

• Prof. Dr. Ruth Bielfeldt (Classical Archaeology, LMU)
• Prof. Dr. Philipp Schorch (Social and Cultural Anthropology, LMU)
• Prof. Dr. Philipp Stockhammer (Prehistoric Archaeology, LMU)
• Dr. Uta Werlich (Museum Five Continents)

Research Focus Group

• Prof. Dr. Michael John Gorman (BIOTOPIA – Naturkundemuseum Bayern / LMU)
• Prof. Dr. Ulrich Pfisterer (Art History, LMU)
• Prof. Dr. Bernhart Schwenk (Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Pinakothek der Moderne)

Advisory Board

• Dr. Susanne Bosche (Classical Archaeology, LMU)
• Dr. Anna-Lisa Dieter (Biotopia)
• Dr. Astrid Fendt (Staatliche Antikensammlung München)
• Dr. Karl Boromäus Murr (Staatlichen Textil- und Industriemuseums Augsburg tim / LMU)
• Colleen Schmitz (Biotopia)

Fellows

• Prof. Ivan Gaskell, Ph.D. (Bard Graduate Center)
• Prof. Dr. Hans Peter Hahn (Universität Frankfurt a.M.)
• Prof. Dr. Anke Te Heesen (HU Berlin)
• Prof. Nicholas Thomas, Ph.D. (Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology/ University of Cambridge)
• Prof. Dr. Margarete Vöhringer (Universität Göttingen)

Events

• Workshop – "Materiality – Museology – Knowledge"
  (Summer Semester 2021)
• Panel Discussion - "Knowledge Creation in Museums"
  (Winter Semester 2021/22)
• Symposium – "What Can Museum Anthropology Do in the 21st Century?"
  (Summer Semester 2022)