Hello!
As I've been thinking about my thesis I found myself in a weird "is this idea cool enough" feedback loop that wasn't productive at all. I spent the last 3 weeks trying to get away from that to really focus on the things that I know I love and am interested in. So far I have three main ideas separated into three major topics, music, food and language.
Music and its impact on people has been something I've been interested in my whole life and i'm always trying to figure out ways to incorporate music into my life and my work. I feel like my idea for music is my weakest but here it goes anyway! If i were to choose this research area i'd like to research how music can be incorporated into museum engagement to enhance the visitor experience and expand their knowledge.
Food is obviously an important part of being alive and every culture has their own food traditions. Personal food traditions, intangible heritage, and how cultures can be embraced and maintained through food traditions is something I have done research on for my own culture and I'd love to expand on that and figure out how food can be incorporated into the museum/public history experience to preserve cultural heritage.
Language is also major and nearly everyone on Earth has language unless you've quite literally been raised by wolves. If I were to do this topic I would focus on how language use can impact visitor experience and I would try to explore ways that museums and other cultural institutions can adjust their language use so that they can be accepting and welcoming of the broadest swath of visitors. This would not only include educating staff on speaking to visitors but also expanding the languages offered in museum interpretation.
I really like all three of these ideas and would happily spend a year researching and writing about them but its almost decision time! I'm sure I'll be confident about my choice when I finally make it, but ask me again in a few weeks.
I really like your ideas. They all sound cool. Music can be used in a lot of different ways, in a variety of museums. It could be artistic, demonstrate a scientific concept about waves or sensory perception, or contribute to an immersive historical experience. It will be interesting to think about how you would portray music visually for people who can't hear it.
ReplyDeleteI don't know if you already know about this, but the Tenement Museum in NYC has food-based tours through the neighborhood, and they use the food to talk about local culture and heritage.
We definitely need more work done on language accessibility. I used to be an ASL interpretation major, so I think about this kind of stuff a lot.
It looks like anything you pick is gonna be great.
Thanks Rebecca! Since I wrote this I started thinking more about classical music and the ways audiences engaged in it from the medieval period up till now which is a BIG topic but I think it could be interesting to explore because music trends are usually directly influence by the art and current events of the time. I dunno where I'm going with that but its an idea!
DeleteI do know about the Tenement Museum program! It's actually a major influence of mine and I want to try to build on the concept a little bit to see if it could be more integrated into the daily activities of the museum.
Language accessibility is so important! I really like the idea of expanding on what I've learned in linguistic anthropology classes over the past 2 years.
Thanks for your comment!
Hi Brie, I think all your ideas are great and to be perfectly honest, I want to read all three! Since you also study language at school, does the last idea you wrote about have more weight than the other two?
ReplyDeleteAnother thing I've been thinking about is how my possible ideas align with my future career goals - do any of these ideas line up with what you think you want to do post-graduation? Just some thoughts to help you narrow! :)
Hey Taylor! I have been thinking about that which is why I'm so torn about all 3 topics because I'm interested in studying history or anthropology from a contemporary perspective about how to preserve "intangible heritage". I feel like all three of these topics are things that you can have very specific emotions about and find interesting ways to preserve and that's kind of what I want to do with my career.
ReplyDeleteHello Brie!
ReplyDeleteAll your thesis ideas are amazing, I feel like you can really go with any one of them! I particularly find the one about music fascinating, and just over all thinking about where you could go with it.
If you were to do that as a thesis would you focus on a specific type of music just to narrow down your research, or maybe would you focus on a specific artist or band, or maybe a few different artist in the same genre? I think this thesis could really go anywhere, and it be really amazing to see how you incorporate music in museums!
Hi Brie, these are interesting topics that all seem to relate to the broader concept of cultural production: what defines tangible and intangible culture and heritage? Reading through your post made me think of my visits to the National Museum of African American History & Culture this summer -- the museum has an interesting way of contextualizing history in the lower three levels and culture on the upper three. Culture is interpreted in myriad ways, with so many objects and the stories they are being used to tell as well as the language used to define and contextualize them. Another thought is to consider reviewing the Folklife Festival -- what makes that click? How does it engage audiences in a meaningful way? How can that be incorporated into your thesis research? Looking forward! -- Dr. Decker
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