1st Edition
Teaching Ancient Egypt in Museums Pedagogies in Practice
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.
What Do Best Practices in Museum Pedagogy Look Like for Ancient Egyptian Material Culture?
Jen Thum, Carl Walsh, Lissette M. Jiménez, and Lisa Saladino Haney
Part 1: Teaching about Tricky Topics
1. Care across Cultures: Shifting Our Approach to the Mummified Body of the Priest Nesmin in Our Museum
MJ Robinson and Gina Borromeo
2. How Did This Get to the Museum? Teaching and Learning about Provenance and Colonialism through Ancient Egyptian Objects
Lissette M. Jiménez and Christine A. Fogarty
3. What to Do with Fakes? Modern Productions of Ancient Egyptian Objects as Pedagogical Tools in Museums
Carl Walsh and Kaelin Jewell
4. Letting the Ancients Speak: Contextualizing Ancient Egyptians through Their Inscribed Objects
Sarah M. Schellinger, Stacy Davidson, and Inês Torres
Part 2: Teaching Towards Accessibility and Inclusivity
5. The Current Scene of Museum Education in Egypt
Fatma Keshk and Shreen Mohamed Amin
6. Breaking Down Barriers at New Egyptian Museums: Accessibility Learning Approaches at the National Museum of Egyptian Civilization and Grand Egyptian Museum
Fatma Ahmed Soliman and Azza Elsayed Rezk Abd el Maksoud
7. U Can Touch This! Learning from Phygital Approaches to Ancient Egyptian Built Heritage in Museums
Eslam Nofal, Hendrik Hameeuw, Andrew Vande Moere, and Vanessa Boschloos
8. Curating Conversations around Collections in Care
Ashley F. Arico and Lucas Livingston
9. From Gloom to Zoom: Online Learning at the Egypt Centre, Swansea, UK during the Covid-19 Pandemic and Beyond
Kenneth Griffin, Ersin Hussein, and Sam Powell
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
Jen Thum and Rebecca Brown
With contributions from workshop participants Buse Aktaş, Caitlin Clerkin, Matthew D’Ambrosio Griffith, Sarah Eisen, Amanda Gann, Emily Kerr, and İpek Karaoğlu Köksalan
11. Gift of the Nile: Centering the Natural World in Museum Learning about Ancient Egypt at Carnegie Museum of Natural History
Lisa Saladino Haney, Jenise Brown, and Lauren Nofi
12. Creating the Child Tut Learning Experience at the Children’s Center for Civilization and Creativity in Egypt
Fatma Mostafa and Ossama A.W. Abdel Meguid
Part 4: Teaching in the Community
13. From Glyphs to Bytes: Ancient Egypt and the Future of Digital Humanities in Museum-Based Learning
Elizabeth Minor, Kalei Oliver, and Katie Fleming
14. Combs from Kemet: Exploring the Potential of Ancient Egyptian Material Culture for Working with Incarcerated Communities
Sally-Ann Ashton and Juliet Betts
15. From Ancient to Living Egypt: Centering Lived Experience in Teaching Egypt within and outside Museums
Heba Abd el-Gawad, Sharyn Volk, Annelies Van de Ven, and Alice Stevenson
16. Expanding the Classroom: British Museum and Tees Valley Partnerships
Loretta Kilroe, Susan Sedgwick, Sarah Welburn, Jessica Robinson, and Laura Condon
17. Broadening School Learning with Ancient Egyptian People’s Histories
Rosanna Evans and Kate Noble
Biography
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.
