Teaching Ancient Egypt in Museums: Pedagogies in Practice explores what best practices in museum pedagogy look like when working with ancient Egyptian material culture.
The contributions within the volume reflect the breadth and collaborative nature of museum learning. They are written by Egyptologists, teachers, curators, museum educators, artists, and community partners working in a variety of institutions around the world—from public, children’s, and university museums, to classrooms and the virtual environment—who bring a broad scope of expertise to the conversation and offer inspiration for tackling a diverse range of challenges. Contributors foreground their first-hand experiences, pedagogical justifications, and reflective teaching practices, offering practical examples of ethical and equitable teaching with ancient Egyptian artifacts.
Teaching Ancient Egypt in Museums serves as a resource for teaching with Egyptian collections at any museum, and at any level. It will also be of great interest to academics and students who are engaged in the study of museums, ancient Egypt, anthropology, and education.
Table of Contents:
What Do Best Practices in Museum Pedagogy Look Like for Ancient Egyptian Material Culture?; Part 1: Teaching about Tricky Topics; 1. Care across Cultures: Shifting Our Approach to the Mummified Body of the Priest Nesmin in Our Museum; 2. How Did This Get to the Museum? Teaching and Learning about Provenance and Colonialism through Ancient Egyptian Objects; 3. What to Do with Fakes? Modern Productions of Ancient Egyptian Objects as Pedagogical Tools in Museums; 4. Letting the Ancients Speak: Contextualizing Ancient Egyptians through Their Inscribed Objects; Part 2: Teaching Towards Accessibility and Inclusivity; 5. The Current Scene of Museum Education in Egypt; 6. Breaking Down Barriers at New Egyptian Museums: Accessibility Learning Approaches at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization and Grand Egyptian Museum; 7. U Can Touch This! Learning from Phygital Approaches to Ancient Egyptian Built Heritage in Museums; 8. Curating Conversations around Collections in Care; 9. From Gloom to Zoom: Online Learning at the Egypt Centre, Swansea, UK during the Covid-19 Pandemic and Beyond; Part 3: Teaching across Disciplines; 10. Interdisciplinarity as a Means of Promoting Equity, Belonging, and Accessibility: What We Learned from a Workshop with Graduate Students at the Harvard Art Museums; 11. Gift of the Nile: Centering the Natural World in Museum Learning about Ancient Egypt at Carnegie Museum of Natural History; 12. Creating the Child Tut Learning Experience at the Children’s Center for Civilization and Creativity in Egypt; Part 4: Teaching in the Community; 13. From Glyphs to Bytes: Ancient Egypt and the Future of Digital Humanities in Museum-Based Learning; 14. Combs from Kemet: Exploring the Potential of Ancient Egyptian Material Culture for Working with Incarcerated Communities; 15. From Ancient to Living Egypt: Centering Lived Experience in Teaching Egypt within and outside Museums; 16. Expanding the Classroom: British Museum and Tees Valley Partnerships; 17. Broadening School Learning with Ancient Egyptian People’s Histories
About the Author :
Jen Thum is Associate Director of Academic Engagement and Campus Partnerships and Research Curator at the Harvard Art Museums at Harvard University. Her work sits at the intersection of museum pedagogy and Egyptology. Jen is committed to celebrating the learning potential of art and artifacts for students and the public alike.
Carl Walsh is a curatorial assistant at the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World at New York University and former postdoctoral fellow at the Barnes Foundation in Philadelphia. He is an archaeologist specializing in ancient Nubia and cross-cultural interactions in the Mediterranean, western Asia, and North Africa during the Bronze Age.
Lissette M. Jiménez is Assistant Professor in the Museum Studies Program and Faculty Curator of the Ancient Mediterranean at the Global Museum at San Francisco State University. She is an archaeologist specializing in ancient Egypt and a museum professional who has curated exhibits and conducted extensive archival research on archaeological legacy collections of the ancient Mediterranean.
Lisa Saladino Haney is an Assistant Curator at Carnegie Museum of Natural History. She has a PhD in Egyptology from the University of Pennsylvania and an MA in Ancient Near Eastern and Egyptian Studies with a concentration in Museum Studies from New York University. She has excavated in Egypt and Oman and enjoys developing engaging experiences for visitors that help them think about ancient Egypt from new perspectives.
