Dear Colleagues,
The following Call for Papers may be of interest to you. Please respond directly to the organisers and through the linked Google form, if you are interested.
Sincerely,
Julie
Call for Papers – Edited Volume
Teaching Ancient Egypt in Museums: Pedagogies in Practice
Egyptian artifacts are central to the learning experiences of schoolchildren, college students, and members of the public in museums across the world, yet there is no volume on best practices for ethical and equitable teaching with Nile Valley material culture. The editors of this volume feel strongly that the time is right to create one—not only because it will serve the many museum educators, teachers, curators, and other professionals who teach regularly with such material in museums, but also because the field of Egyptology is experiencing a period of heightened self-critique. Our colleagues have begun to productively interrogate the colonial, orientalist, and archaeologically questionable underpinnings of the discipline. The methods we use to teach from artifacts and human remains, and the ancient and modern social contexts we ground them in, must support the field’s changing vision of itself. In turn, ethical museum pedagogies and equitable learning experiences will shape more critical views of both ancient and modern Egypt among museum visitors in the future.
Teaching Ancient Egypt in Museums: Pedagogies in Practice is intended to be a resource for developing best practices for teaching and learning in museums. Rooted in current social justice and decolonization approaches, it centers on the question, what do ethical museum pedagogies look like for Egyptian material culture? Such pedagogies may take different forms for contributors, from creating collaborative teaching materials to engaging with local communities; from rethinking accessibility to decolonizing exhibition content; and from humanizing ancient people to better representing the voices and scholarship of those who live in modern Egypt and Sudan today. The collection of essays in this volume will present case studies that foreground contributors’ first-hand experiences, methodologies, and reflective teaching practices.
Proposed essays should center on object-based, practice-oriented learning experiences with clear goals. These learning experiences may include public programs, group visits, self-guiding materials, curatorial/exhibition materials, and virtual experiences, among others. Prospective authors will be asked to write critically and reflectively about the successes and challenges of their case studies.
The editors strongly encourage submissions that are collaborative and co- or multi-authored, including those written in partnership between Egyptologists, teachers, curators, docents, museum educators, community workers, artists, and others. Our goal for the volume is to represent the voices and experiences of a broad spectrum of colleagues and learners. We especially welcome submissions from Egyptian and Sudanese colleagues, and from those working with museums in Egypt and Sudan.
We are seeking contributions on the following topics, but also encourage submissions covering other areas related to teaching with Egyptian material in museums:
- Decolonizing museum-based teaching and learning
- Teaching in museums in Egypt and Sudan
- Centering community voices in museums
- Object-based teaching on topics such as colonialism, provenance, collecting practices, and forgeries/replicas
- Teaching with digital resources/technologies
- Interdisciplinary teaching with Egyptian artifacts
- Teaching through conservation and conservation science
- Teaching K-12 learners and/or K-12 teacher training in museum pedagogy
- Teaching university students
- Teaching adult lay learners/continuing education students
- Teaching by artists/for art students
- Teaching for informal online audiences (e.g. via social media)
- Teaching for learners who require special accommodations
If you have an idea for an essay topic that is not represented above, or if you are interested in finding a co-author, please reach out to the editors with a short project summary, and we will be happy to discuss.
Prospective authors are invited to submit a title and abstract (200-300 words) in English that details their proposed essay topic and pedagogical methods by September 1st 2021 using this Google Form.
Please send any questions to the editors: Jen Thum (she/her, jennifer_thum@harvard.edu), Carl Walsh (he/him, cwalsh@barnesfoundation.org), Lissette Jiménez (she/her, lmj@sfsu.edu), and Lisa Saladino Haney (she/her, haneyl@carnegiemnh.org).
