HIST 597: Topics in Applied History
HIST 597-003: Decolonizing Museums
(Fall 2026)
04:30 PM to 07:10 PM R
Krug Hall 209
Section Information for Fall 2026
Museums are powerful institutions that shape the public’s understanding of Native American history and culture.
This course provides a historical overview of the changing relationship between Indigenous people and museums and examines the current state of contemporary museum practice.
The central questions we will consider include:
How has the relationship between Native Americans and museums changed over the last century and what are the key watershed moments and developments in the field?
What are the predominant themes and narratives, objects and images in exhibitions focusing on Indigenous history and culture?
How can museums grapple with centuries of unresolved trauma as they tell the stories of Native American histories and cultures?
How have tribal communities challenged the rights of museums to house their material culture and human remains, and engaged in efforts to decolonize museums? How can museums honor Indigenous pasts while simultaneously asking hard questions about the history of settler colonialism in the United States?
What are the future directions in contemporary museum practice?
Topics will include “salvage anthropology” and the collecting of Native American material culture in the early 20th century; historic and contemporary exhibition practices; Indigenous activism and the passage of the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (1990); the potential for museums to serve as “sites of conscience”; Indigenous curation methods; and the development of tribally owned and operated museums.
We will also address questions of historical evidence and methodology, the politics of theory and perspective, and conceptual approaches to the study of museums and public history.
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Course Information from the University Catalog
Credits: 3
Enrollment limited to students with a class of Advanced to Candidacy, Graduate, Junior Plus, Non-Degree or Senior Plus.
Students in a Non-Degree Undergraduate degree may not enroll.
This course is graded on the Graduate Regular scale.
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