Museums and Coloniality in a Global Context

In June 2020, Congolese activist Diyabanza tried to remove a funerary post from Chad from the Paris Musée du Quai Branly as a protest against colonial-era looting. His provocation sparked a debate on the museum's role in reproducing the logics of empire and colonialism. This course explores the structural conflicts museums are entangled in as 'public' institutions bound by elitist interests. It offers an introduction to the history of museums through seven case studies from across the globe, including Duke's Nasher Museum. Rather than approaching museums as neutral sites of cultural education, we examine them as infrastructures shaped by, and instrumental to, domination and inequality.