Summer School - Identity in the Global World, 24 September - 5 October 2018, Germany
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The Henry Arnhold Dresden Summer School is an interdisciplinary programme for young academics and museum professionals. It takes its name from the honorary fellow of the TU Dresden, Henry Arnhold, whose philanthropic spirit and close ties to Dresden, the city of his birth, have inspired diverse partnerships between the city’s cultural and academic institutions. As a joint project between the TU Dresden, Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Militärhistorisches Museum der Bundeswehr, Sächsische Landesbibliothek – Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, and Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, the Dresden Summer School draws from the resources of a broad network of major partners. The project aims to bring together high-level speakers and experts from the participating institutions to discuss topical issues relating to how museums and libraries perceive themselves, their mission, and the state of collections and exhibitions in the future. The discussions cover underlying theoretical concepts but also include concrete practical approaches.
Archival and documentation studies, library and information science, ethnology, German studies, history, art history, cultural studies, media studies, museology, philosophy, political science, psychology, sociology, and related subjects.
Participation in the Henry Arnhold Dresden Summer School is open to young postgraduates (esp. PhD students, post-docs) from the relevant disciplines, as well as young museum, archive or library professionals.
The concept of identity plays a central role in current social debates and political polarisation. While some describe identity as an open construct that reflects global contexts and cosmopolitan attitudes, others associate the term more closely with the local, the original, the own, in short, with concepts that belong to a sense of ‘home’, whatever form that may take. How can identity in a globally interconnected world be understood in a way that takes the tensions that accompany this interconnection into account? How can institutions of art and culture, in their role as guardians of material culture, react to the current challenges? What understanding of identity shapes these institutions, and what offerings related to identity can they provide?
Museums, archives and libraries often have at their disposal collections with rich traditions containing objects from around the world, as well as access to international networks that confront them with highly diverse points of view regarding their holdings. At the same time, as preservers of cultural heritage, they contribute to a sense of identity in a regional context, and often represent the culmination of processes of self-affirmation and the quest for a sense of belonging. They thus inherently reflect the tension between the local and the global, and the social conflict line connecting these two poles touches them directly.
In its ten-day programme the Henry Arnhold Dresden Summer School 2018 seeks to explore the question of the possible positions that collecting institutions and institutions of cultural memory can adopt in the discourse surrounding identity in today’s globalised world. How do they confront the challenges they face in this context? To what extent do they actively see themselves as shapers of identity, and if so, how is that identity forged? What new concepts exist between a globalised world, on the one hand, and a world of cultures from around the globe on the other? What significance does the question of the institutions’ own identity take on in addressing the provenance of their own collections?
To seek possible answers to these questions, the Henry Arnhold Dresden Summer School 2018 will examine exemplary themes developed to coincide with the current core topics pursued by the participating institutions in their work. For example, we will discuss questions of identity and exclusion in the context of the exhibition ‘Racism: The Invention of Human Races’ at the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum. The ethnological museums, as part of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, provide the opportunity to critically question a globally oriented view of identity. The relationship between identity and memory will be discussed from the point of view of the Saxon State and University Library Dresden (SLUB). Finally, the exhibition ‘Gewalt und Geschlecht. Männlicher Krieg – weiblicher Frieden?’ (Violence and Gender: Male War – Female Peace?) at the Militärhistorisches Museum der Bundeswehr forms the background for questions regarding the individual development of identity.
As a collaborative project of the Technische Universität Dresden, the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden, the Militärhistorisches Museum der Bundeswehr, the Saxon State and University Library Dresden (SLUB), and the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, the Henry Arnhold Dresden Summer School 2018 offers a unique opportunity to address theoretical and practical concepts simultaneously. Concrete issues and proposed solutions are discussed during visits to exhibitions and in interdisciplinary workshops. In addition, the programme offers the opportunity for in-depth examination of the participating institutions and discussion with their representatives, as well as vigorous debate with renowned experts and scholars.
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