New Books in Museum Studies8 Loka 2021

Richard J. A. McGregor, "Islam and the Devotional Object" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

In Islam and the Devotional Object: Seeing Religion in Egypt and Syria (Cambridge University Press, 2020), Richard J. A. McGregor, Associate Professor at Vanderbilt University, offers a history of Islamic practice through the aesthetic reception of medieval religious objects. Elaborate parades in Cairo and Damascus included decorated objects of great value, destined for Mecca and Medina. Among these were the precious dress sewn yearly for the Ka'ba, and large colorful sedans mounted on camels, which mysteriously completed the Hajj without carrying a single passenger. Along with the brisk trade in Islamic relics, these objects and the variety of contested meanings attached to them, constituted material practices of religion that persisted into the colonial era, but were suppressed in the twentieth century. McGregor here recovers the biographies of religious objects, including relics, banners, public texts, and coverings for the Ka'ba. Reconstructing the premodern visual culture of Islamic Egypt and Syria, he follows the shifting meanings attached to objects of devotion, as well as the contingent nature of religious practice and experience. In our conversation we discuss aesthetic theory, material culture, processional objects, museum exhibition, relic typologies, devotional objects and religious landscapes, public celebrations, visual text and its illegibility, and the function of banners. Kristian Petersen is an Assistant Professor of Philosophy & Religious Studies at Old Dominion University. You can find out more about his work on his website, follow him on Twitter @BabaKristian, or email him at kpeterse@odu.edu. 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