"The Role of Museums in the 21st Century" - An Owl & Ibis Presentation by Ramona Leiter

The British Museum

On September 26, 2020, Ramona Leiter gave an outstanding multimedia presentation at Owl & Ibis - A Confluence of Minds titled "The Role of Museums in the 21st Century." Mona expertly informed us and presented the various facets and difficulties attendant to museums, past, present, and future.

Here is Mona to discuss her presentation and provide links to key elements of her talk:

Hello everyone! Thank you very much to all that participated in the discussion last Saturday. I was thrilled to have a project to use my editing software, Movavi, on. Seeing things come together with the different transitions, effects etc... and how quickly I could edit it all into something that was how I envisioned it in my head was thrilling. This gives me the confidence to move on to more challenging things.

As I said in the presentation I am very passionate about museums and loved working on this presentation and talking about museums with other museum lovers. It was hard to research some of the darker side of museum history but I still love museums.

Attached you will find a word document and a pdf document that comprise my narration from the presentation. Below are the two videos I featured in the presentation for you to view if you missed them.

Vox video - The British Museum is full of stolen artifacts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoTxiRWrvp8&list=PLGfjPinKsOHVproBJ7Anqm28xHmr0OXtE&index=9

FBI makes "staggering" discovery of human bones while seizing trove of artifacts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D7bl7je0FTM

And here are some other important links:

How I learned to stop hating and love museums - TED X Talk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VWPHKABRQA&list=PLGfjPinKsOHVproBJ7Anqm28xHmr0OXtE&index=1

For looking at the tech way forward with museums try this video - How the Rijksmuseum is reinventing the museum another Ted X talk 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L4V-6albaG0&list=PLGfjPinKsOHVproBJ7Anqm28xHmr0OXtE&index=5

Here is the video on the Stolen Goods tour at The British Museum

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWVVTTsW5No&t=37s

Here is the full Getty blog entry with related resources on the New Face of Provenance Research in relation to Nazi-era looted art.

http://blogs.getty.edu/iris/the-new-face-of-provenance-research/

And here is the Wikipedia article on the 1970 UNESCO Convention on the Means of Prohibiting and Preventing the Illicit Import, Export and Transfer of Ownership of Cultural Property

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UNESCO_Convention_on_the_Means_of_Prohibiting_and_Preventing_the_Illicit_Import,_Export_and_Transfer_of_Ownership_of_Cultural_Property

I again thank everyone for the kind words and participation. 

Mona

Attachments

Museums Purpose

21st Century Challenge Museums

"The 2020 Twilight Zone" by Pam Dewey

 

Here are two new documentaries on the back stories of US history and current affairs most of us were not taught in school. Master researcher, social critic, author, and documentary producer, Pamela Starr Dewey, calls them DocuCommentaries though they are longer on documentary than on commentary. By that I mean Pam Dewey insists on presenting the unvarnished lesser-known facts of US history and society, then letting her audience draw their own conclusions. I recommend both her new productions very highly.

Here’s Pam:

 My latest DocuCommentary is now available on my Meet MythAmerica YouTube channel. I am starting a new "miniseries" that is called The 2020 Twilight Zone.

The 2020 Twilight Zone, Episode 1: Down the Rabbit Hole

In early 2020 the Lincoln Project, a group of Republicans who were totally disillusioned with the presidency of Donald Trump and wanted to prevent him from being elected to a second term, began producing and airing a series of very creative and edgy brief ads designed to thwart his campaign efforts. One of those ads was titled “MAGAChurch,” and highlighted the unholy alliance that had developed between the Trump Administration and a large portion of those in positions of influence and power in American Conservative Evangelical Christian circles.

A number of these leaders appeared in brief clips in the Lincoln Project ad, saying preposterous things in support of Trump. But it wasn’t possible in such a brief time to give more than a cameo appearance to each. I created this 2020 Twilight Zone episode titled “Down the Rabbit Hole” to be a companion piece to that short ad. It provides details of the rest of the story behind each of the influential people who appear in the MAGAChurch ad, in order to emphasize just how toxic the combination of Conservative Religion and Conservative Politics has become in 2020 America.

The 2020 Twilight Zone, Episode 2: QANON: Pre-History of a Half-Baked Theory

This first episode in a multi-part series is titled “QANON: Pre-History of a Half-Baked Theory.” It goes in some depth into the background that led up to the emergence of QANON from the dark reaches of the Web. Future episodes will clarify what supporters believe, how they organize, what their goals are…and why you should care.

In early 2018 the phenomenon referred to as QANON was barely a blip on the radar of even the mass media in the US. The average citizen had never heard of it. For the few people who *had* heard of it in mainstream society, it appeared to be nothing more than a wacky conspiracy theory that was only appealing to a small segment of Americans, the same types of folks who dabbled in looking for Abominable Snowmen, or still fussed over trying to pin down exactly who killed JFK and why, even after over 50 years had passed since that tragedy. 

But something happened in early 2020. Suddenly evidence of the existence of QANON started popping up where it was getting noticed, particularly at the campaign rallies of Donald Trump. And then came the summer of 2020, when suddenly articles about QANON became almost daily fodder for news outlets all over the place, from CNN to the New York Times to Rolling Stone magazine. (And even across the oceans, in Europe and Australia.)  It was no longer at the fringes of society, it had barreled into the center … and was circling around the White House. 

Brief descriptions of “what it’s all about” appear regularly in news articles now, but I believe a deeper look into the background, history, beliefs, followers, and influence of QANON will be more valuable to anyone who wants to more clearly understand…that QANON may have a profound influence on the election of 2020, and power to change the trajectory of American society long after.

"Cultural Appropriation" - An Owl & Ibis Presentation By Jim Lassiter

After an eight-month break, Owl & Ibis - A Confluence of Minds resumed holding meetings on August 29, 2020. This internationally attended meeting was held via Zoom. A PDF of the slideshow accompanying the meeting’s presentation may be viewed here. The recorded narration accompanying the slideshow is below. Links to the slideshow and narrative are located in the Owl & Ibis upper left drop down menu. 

The next meeting of Owl & Ibis will be held on September 26, 2020 from 4-6PM Eastern US Time. Mona Leiter will chair and present “The Role of Museums in the 21st Century.”

Send me an email if you would like to join future meetings.

JEL }:> & ~:)

Cultural Appropriation Narration*

 An Owl & Ibis – Confluence of Minds Presentation (33 minutes)

Jim Lassiter

August 29, 2020

SLIDE 1

 In 1727, Philadelphia newspaper printer Benjamin Franklin, then 21, formed the Junto, also known as the Leather Apron Club, a group of "like minded aspiring artisans and tradesmen who hoped to improve themselves while they improved their community." The Junto was a discussion group for issues of the day; the purpose was to debate questions of morals, politics, and natural philosophy, and to exchange knowledge of business affairs.

The Junto was modeled after English coffee houses which had become the center of the spread of Enlightenment ideas in Britain. Reading was a great pastime of the Junto, but books were rare and expensive. The members created a library initially assembled from their own books.

Inspired by Franklin’s Junto I started a similar discussion group here in Fayetteville, Georgia, just south of Atlanta where my wife Immy Rose and I retired in 2008.

 I chose as totems two icons from the European and African intellectual traditions. Athena, Greek goddess of wisdom and war and Thoth, Egyptian god of knowledge and engineering. Note the owl with Athena and that Thoth has the head of a sacred African ibis.  

I named the gathering Owl & Ibis then created a logo. I added the subtitle A Confluence of Minds to emphasize the group’s collegial, egalitarian nature.

Tonight, after a seven month pause, I am making the first presentation of a restart of Owl & Ibis  – Cultural Appropriation.

This title slide hints at some of the issues I will discuss. Did I appropriate Franklin’s idea of a discussion group? Another person’s or another culture’s images? Whose fonts did I use? Whose shades of color have I chosen? What about the English language itself? As an Anglo-American African, not an Englishman, did I appropriate the English language?

SLIDE 2

Let us begin with some fundamental definitions. This is said to be the first social scientific definition of “culture.”