What Do Museums Do?

Museums are unique spaces that shape stories around resonant objects. This course explores the evolution of museum archetypes: from private collections of ancient relics to magnificent public buildings filled with art, scientific specimens, and historical archives. How and why have they evolved? Who really owns the artifacts on display? Is everything you see in a museum authentic and/or priceless? What is it about museums that compels us to visit and enjoy them?  We will look at a variety of noteworthy institutions and installations, from the Louvre in Paris to New York MoMA to the POLIN Museum in Warsaw; from the earliest habitat dioramas in Milwaukee and Pittsburgh to displays of repatriated looted antiquities in Rome.

Faculty Bios

Mitchell Schwarzer is Professor Emeritus of Art and Architectural History at California College of the Arts. He has written extensively on modern European and American architecture, memorialization, and urban history. 

Marjorie Schwarzer is the author of Riches, Rivals, and Radicals: A History of Museums in the United States. In addition to her professional museum work around the world, she has taught museum studies at the graduate level at JFK University and University of San Francisco.

This is an In-Person, Livestreamed + Recorded Course

• Classes will meet in person at the Golden Bear Center, Suite 365, at 1995 University Ave., Berkeley
• Classes will also stream live, and be video recorded
• You must be a current OLLI @Berkeley member to register. Learn about membership, including our fee assistance program.

Schedule Highlights

• Course starts on Wednesday, April 2, and ends on Wednesday, April 23
• Classes meet for 4 weeks, 2 hours per session (1–3 PM)
• All course materials will remain available to view and enjoy in Member Dashboards through May 31