1st Edition
Flourishing in Museums Towards a Positive Museology
Flourishing in Museums presents the Flourishing Museum Framework, an interdisciplinary model for reflection and practice. Illustrated via a diversity of international examples, the framework demonstrates how museums can meaningfully address the many challenges facing the profession.
Including contributions from a wide range of scholar-practitioners working across the arts, humanities, sciences, education, business, and mental health disciplines, the volume uses abundance-thinking and takes a strengths-based appreciative approach to museum purpose, function, and being. The book demonstrates that, even within the most difficult climates, abundance-oriented methods and perspectives can inspire and elicit flourishing in visitors, staff, and communities, thus positioning museums as places where people find meaningful and purposeful work and where visitors find satisfaction, meaning, inspiration, and motivation. Drawing from the disciplines of positive psychology, positive organizational scholarship, contemplative studies, and museum studies, the book is unified and organized into six thematic areas that comprise the Flourishing Museum Framework: courage, transformation, care, optimism, gratitude, and delight.
Flourishing in Museums will be essential reading for academics and students working in the museum and heritage fields, as well as the cognate disciplines of arts management and creative industries. It will also be useful to practitioners working in museums and heritage sites around the world.
Part I. Introduction
1 Introduction - Flourishing in Theory, Experience, and Practice
Part II. Flourishing with Intention
Section I: Exploring Courage
2 Courage as Flourishing
3 Expanding a Museum Internationally: Belief Despite the Challenges
Jasminko Halilovic
4. Collaborative Courage: Examining Meanings from a Risk-Taking Exhibition Experience
Michigan State University (MSU) Museum’s "Finding Our Voice" Project Team: Mary Worrall, Denice Blair, Teresa Goforth, Kelly Hansen
5. Practicing Bravery in Museum Leadership: A Love Story
Kiersten F. Latham
Section II: Regarding Care
6 Care as Flourishing
7 Museums of Hope: Reinterpreting Museums for People’s Well-being
Poornima Sardana
8 Cultivating Compassion in the Museum Workplace
Corinne Zimmerman
9 Reconsidering Japanese Museum Professional Training from a Positive Lens
Yuka Inoue, Tadahito Emizu
10 Forgiveness: In Conversation with 3,397 Indigenous Stone Sools
Steve Brown
Section III: Envisioning Transformation
11 Transformation as Flourishing
12 Appreciating the Broad Spectrum of Positive Visitor Experiences in Museums: A Journey of Discovery
Dr. Jan Packer
13 On Museums, Transcendence, and Magic
Lois H. Silverman
14 Different but Same
Leslie Bedford
15 Flourishing through Museums: Designing for Empathy® with the Oneness Mindset
Elif M. Gokcigdem, PhD
Section IV: Considering Optimism
16 Optimism as Flourishing
17 Hope, Love and Improvisation: A Dance Through Change and Choice
Andrew Nemr
18 An Intentional Museum is Always on the Verge of Becoming
Randi Korn
19 Museums and the Wellbeing of University Students during Covid19: ‘Something that meant something to me’
Jury, H. and Chatterjee, H.J.
20 Archives Making the Past Present: The Folklore Fragments Podcast
Jonny Dillon
Section V: Recognizing Gratitude
21 Gratitude as Flourishing
22 How interactive playful experiences can help us practice being grateful.
Anne Fullenkamp
23 A Healing Museum Partnership: Objects, Giving and Gratitude from Syria to Sweden
Brenda Cowan and Sofia Häggman
24 Gratitude and Ethics: A Business Equation for Success
Rob Cohen
Section VI: Examining Delight
25 Delight as Flourishing
26 Keeping in Good Humor
Cathy Hamaker and Elizabeth Wood
27 Meaningful Museum Experiences are Satisfying Museum Experiences
John H. Falk
28 Why so Serious? Harnessing the Phenomenon of Fun in Museums
Helen Divjak and Christina Ferwerda
Part III. Conclusion
29 Conclusion - Next Steps toward a Positive Museology
References
Index
Biography
Kiersten F. Latham, PhD, is the President & CEO of Sauder Village, a living history museum complex in Ohio, USA.
Professor Brenda Cowan is an educator and former chairperson at SUNY Fashion Institute of Technology in the graduate Exhibition & Experience Design department.
