HS/MU 338 - Museums and Public History: The View from Vienna

This course at the intersection of history and museum studies draws on Vienna’s rich cultural landscape to provide students with experiential learning opportunities that foster critical thinking about a variety of Viennese museums and their historical significance. Combining theory and practice, the course explores questions about what “the museum” is, what kinds of museums exist, how the varieties of history (cultural, political, military, art-historical, natural, intellectual, social, economic) are represented in different genres of museums, and how and why museums come into existence at a particular time and place. Students will also reflect upon what the role of a museum is and can be in society, along with what kinds of careers students can find in museums upon graduation. Regular sessions at the Wien Museum (Vienna’s city history museum) and visits to other museums and memorial sites across Vienna augment the classroom sessions.