New Books in Museum Studies25 Maalis 2021

Aaron Tugendhaft, "The Idols of ISIS: From Assyria to the Internet" (U Chicago Press, 2020)

In 2015, the Islamic State released a video of men smashing sculptures in Iraq’s Mosul Museum as part of a mission to cleanse the world of idolatry. The Idols of ISIS: From Assyria to the Internet (University of Chicago Press, 2020) unpacks three key facets of that event: the status and power of images, the political importance of museums, and the efficacy of videos in furthering an ideological agenda through the internet. Beginning with the Islamic State’s claim that the smashed objects were idols of the “age of ignorance,” Aaron Tugendhaft questions whether there can be any political life without idolatry. He then explores the various roles Mesopotamian sculpture has played in European imperial competition, the development of artistic modernism, and the formation of Iraqi national identity, showing how this history reverberates in the choice of the Mosul Museum as performance stage. Finally, he compares the Islamic State’s production of images to the ways in which images circulated in ancient Assyria and asks how digitization has transformed politics in the age of social media. An elegant and accessibly written introduction to the complexities of such events, The Idols of ISIS is ideal for students and readers seeking a richer cultural perspective than the media usually provides. Marci Mazzarotto is an Assistant Professor and Program Coordinator of Digital Communication at Georgian Court University in New Jersey. Her research interests center on the interdisciplinary intersection of academic theory and artistic practice often with a focus on film and television studies. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Sadiah Qureshi, "Vanished: An Unnatural History of Extinction" (Penguin, 2025)

Anyone alive today is among a tiny fraction of the once living: over 90% of species that ever existed are now extinct. How did we come to think of ourselves as survivors in a world where species ca...

4 Heinä 39min

Cleo Nisse, "Venetian Canvas and the Transformation of Painting" (Princeton UP, 2026)

Between the fifteenth and early seventeenth centuries, European painting underwent a profound transformation as artists increasingly painted on canvas instead of wood or walls. Nowhere was more imp...

26 Kesä 47min

Where Harlem Rests at the Woodlawn Cemetery

A cemetery as open-air museum? Historian and award-winning author of Boss of the Grips: The Life of James H. Williams and the Red Caps of Grand Central Terminal, Eric K. Washington thinks so. In this...

23 Kesä 0s

Lewis Ryder, "Connoisseurs and conmen: The contest for cultural authority in early twentieth-century Britain" (Manchester UP, 2026)

⁠Connoisseurs and conmen: The contest for cultural authority in early twentieth-century Britain⁠ (Manchester University Press, 2026) by Dr. Lewis Ryder examines John Hilditch (1872-1930), a notoriou...

5 Kesä 44min

David Cunningham on Contesting Confederate Monuments (JP)

David Cunningham joins John to speak about his pathbreaking article about visiting each of the 113 communities that removed or relocated Confederate symbols between 2015 and 2023. After discussing his...

4 Kesä 51min

Homes of the Past

In 1940s New York, immigrant Jewish scholars sought to build a museum to commemorate their lost worlds and people. Among the Jews who arrived in the United States in the early 1940s were a small numbe...

1 Kesä 0s

“You Sound So Australian”: From Being Read to Rewriting the Room with guest Zindzi Okenyo

Welcome to the first episode of The Cultural Competence Collective podcast! For our first episode, we are joined by the multi-talented actress, musician and director, Zindzi Okenyo! You may recognise...

30 Touko 0s

Kanika Singh, "The Story of a Sikh Museum: Heritage, Politics, Popular Culture" (Cambridge UP, 2025)

The Story of a Sikh Museum: Heritage, Politics, Popular Culture, published by Cambridge University Press in July 2025, is a pioneering study on Sikh museums, a unique phenomenon of contemporary Indi...

27 Touko 39min