State University Museum Research Articles

A review of Vietnamese Scolopocryptops Newport, 1844 (Chilopoda: Scolopendromorpha), with a description of S. hoanglieni n. sp. and the updated generic list of species.

The Vietnamese fauna of the genus Scolopocryptops Newport, 1844 was reviewed based on recently collected specimens and material from Zoological Museum of the Moscow Lomonosov State University (ZMMU) and Naturhistorisches Museum Wien (NHMW). As a result of study of 164 specimens from 13 sampling regions, four species have been recognized, of which S. rubiginosus C.L. Koch, 1878 and S. spinicaudus Wood, 1862 already reported from Vietnam, S. hoanglieni described as n. sp., and S. capillipedatus (Takakuwa, 1938) for the first time recorded for this country. S. broelemanni esulcata Attems, 1938 was redescribed and confirmed as a valid. The COI fragments were obtained for the above mentioned species and the K2P genetic divergence between Vietnamese Scolopocryptops species was preliminarily estimated. New data on intraspecific variations of spiracle number in Scolopocryptops, an identification key for East Asian species and the general list of species of Scolopocryptops are provided.

Cultural-based digital archive approach to enrich student users’ curriculum interpretation and worldview

In the 21st century, digitalization is essential to optimize preservation and conservation of museum artifacts. Digital archives provide critical.extension value and relevant information resources that enrich users' cultural knowledge and connection through object analysis. This study explores the potential of HistoryPin, a free online application for cultural storytelling, to expand student users’ worldview concept and interaction with museum artifacts through a series of curated collections as a learning and engagement tool. 
 A collaboration between Kent State University Museum and the School of Fashion’s Historic Textiles course in Spring 2022, this case study identified cultural artifacts including textiles, costumes, and related accessories to illustrate and support course topics. Artifacts representing a range of geographic areas were selected, digitized, and presented with images in different views, cultural and historical information, and linked data in the virtual tour setting of HistoryPin. Students from both online and in-person sections experienced a virtual exhibition of artifacts, which reinforced and extended class content for further interpretation and engagement. 
 Advanced interactive technologies, such as comments, favorites, and thought/image sharing on different social media, from HistoryPin allowed students to reflect on various perspectives related to cultural objects. After each section of the course, researchers gathered student users’ interactive comments shared on HistoryPin. A content analysis approach of emergent themes revealed the impact and contributions of museum artifacts. Moreover, a targeted survey provided sub-analyses on the cultural-based digital archive approach which informed an overall assessment of the impact in enriching student users’ virtual museum experience.

Fashion Out of Scranton

The One Hour Dress was considered a “sensation” when introduced in 1923 by sewing and fashion expert Mary Brooks Picken (1886–1968) of the Woman’s Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Through demonstrations held at American department stores between 1923 and 1925, Picken sought to stop a national decline in sales of sewing equipment and supplies. Endorsement by film actress Mae Marsh (1894–1968) linked the dress with Hollywood glamour at a time when celebrity and mass consumption were changing the fashion industry and advertising. Reconstructing the One Hour Dress led to a re-examination of the Michigan State University Museum’s historic dress collection, where was found a garment constructed along similar lines. The authors offer guidelines to identify One Hour-type dresses. The One Hour Dress, as a teaching tool, offers a case study for studying the past to merge pre-industrial dressmaking (local production, customization) and modern standards of quality and style.

Archaeological Heritage of the Mariinsk Forest-Steppe in Russian Museums

The article summarizes scattered data on the archaeological artifacts found in the forest-steppe of the Mariinsk area of Kuzbass and exhibited in various Russian museums. Kuzbass owes most of its archeological heritage to the Mariinsk forest-steppe. The present research made it possible to expand the source base for the corpus of archaeological sites in Kuzbass and introduce some new data about valuable artifacts from Kuzbass that are kept in museums all over Russia. The one and a half century of Mariinsk excavations can be divided into three periods. No items from the first period, i.e. the last quarter of XIX century, remained in Kuzbass museums. Artifacts from the second period are distributed between the Kuzbass State Museum of Local History, the Kemerovo State University Museum, and the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Other archaeological collections from Mariinsk are to be found in the following museums: the State Historical Museum, the Hermitage, the museums of Archeology and Ethnography of Tomsk and Kemerovo State Universities, and the Museums of Local History of Kuzbass, Mariinsk, Leninsk-Kuznetskiy, and Tisul. The collections present a valuable source of new information about the history of Southern Siberia.

From the Archives: Vernon E. Grant Collection

This article highlights the work of African American cartoonist Vernon E. Grant. While not widely known during his lifetime, he created single panel gag cartoons, two graphic novels, and the sci-fi comic book series The Love Rangers. Topics in his work include military life, war, the environment, diversity, manga, and the expatriate experience in Japan. Grant was a career US Army officer who served in Vietnam in the 1960s and drew cartoons titled Grant's Grunts and Grants Heroes for the Pacific Stars and Stripes military newspaper. Grant self-published a collection of gag cartoons satirizing military life, Stand-By One!, and two graphic novels about the adventures of a hapless US Army Private, Point-Man Palmer. While in Japan, Grant began to consciously incorporate manga style and storytelling into his work. A Monster Is Loose!—In Tokyo, his 1972 graphic novel, used the popularity of monsters in manga to tell the story of his expatriate experience in Japan. He returned to the United States in the 1970s and utilized his love of science fiction along with his experiences in Japan and the military to create his fantasy series, The Love Rangers. His art and archives were donated to The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum in 2019.

RECENT ORNITHOLOGICAL EXPEDITIONS TO SIBERUT ISLAND, MT. TALAMAU AND RIMBO PANTI NATURE RESERVE, SUMATRA, INDONESIA

Siberut Island, Mt. Talamau, Rimbo Panti Nature Reserve, and intervening locations in West Sumatra Province were visited during two expeditions in 2018-2019 by ornithologists from the Museum Zoologicum Bogoriense (MZB) - Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Louisiana State University Museum of Natural Science (LSUMNS), and Andalas University. The main objective of these expeditions was to obtain data and tissue-subsample rich museum specimens for morphological and genetic studies of phylogeny and population genetics of Southeast Asian birds aimed at understanding the causes of avian diversification in the region. We also observed, photographed, and audio-recorded numerous bird species during the expeditions and archived these data. In total, 285 species were identified, and specimen material was collected from 13 species and 26 subspecies not previously represented in tissue resource collections. Here, we provide complete lists of birds found at each location, highlight distributional discoveries, and note cases of potential taxonomic, ecological, and conservation interest.

Iconoclast in Ink: The Political Cartoons of Jay N. "Ding" Darling by Richard Samuel West

Reviewed by: Iconoclast in Ink: The Political Cartoons of Jay N. "Ding" Darling by Richard Samuel West Paul V. Murphy Richard Samuel West, Iconoclast in Ink: The Political Cartoons of Jay N. "Ding" Darling. Columbus: The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, 2012. 194 pp. $24.95. Jay Norwood "Ding" Darling began his nearly fifty-year career as a cartoonist in 1900 when he joined the staff of the Sioux City Journal. Newspapers of that era were in transition, still at the center of partisan politics but also part of an emerging mass media that played an important role in integrating the towns and cities scattered across the country into a national popular culture. Darling contributed to both projects. He gained a national following, eventually earning two Pulitzer Prizes, while advancing a progressive political vision fostered by two prominent and gifted [End Page 179] Republican newspapermen. The first of these, George Perkins, initially hired Darling for the Journal. Gardner Cowles later lured him to the Des Moines Register and Leader in 1906, where Darling spent the bulk of his career. Darling perfected the gentle but biting single-panel, front-page political cartoon, using homey and charming images to bring public figures down to size and to translate complex issues into "everyday terms that anyone could understand" (5). He eventually gained a national audience through syndication by the New York Tribune. In collaboration with The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum, Richard Samuel West has produced a handsome, large-format, and copiously illustrated volume attesting to Darling's abilities. West pairs a knowledgeable, well-illustrated eighty-page survey of Darling's art and politics with a selection of over one hundred cartoons, presented on a scale that almost matches the six-by-eight-inch format in which many originally appeared. Read together, they give a glimpse of a political world lost. Born in the tiny lakeshore village of Norwood (from which his middle name derived) in the upper stretches of Michigan's lower peninsula in 1876, Darling moved throughout Michigan and Indiana before his family settled in Sioux City, Iowa, in 1886. He was an energetic, irreverent youth, expelled from Yankton College in South Dakota for commandeering the president's horse and buggy and suspended from his next school, Beloit College, due to poor attendance and scholarship. At Beloit, he drew satirical drawings of his professors, signing himself as Ding, from "D'ing", a contraction that had become a habit with his father and brother. "Ding" Darling became the name by which he was known. He first attracted national notice as a cartoonist in 1907 with a fine panel featuring President Theodore Roosevelt sitting at the end of a makeshift diving board over a rural stream, splashing idly in the water, unsure what to do, while seven would-be rivals for the 1908 Republican presidential nomination—from William Howard Taft to Robert La Follette—lined up impatiently behind him. Darling exemplified a type of progressivism almost unknown in the Republican Party of today. He was skeptical of trusts and the business selfishness they embodied, optimistic regarding the regulatory power of government (to end child labor and regulate railroads, for example), and passionate in his belief in international government to prevent the scourge of war. He idolized Herbert Hoover and generally criticized Democratic policies, but he supported Woodrow Wilson and Franklin D. Roosevelt when they advanced progressive aims, particularly in foreign affairs. He often [End Page 180] assumed the stance of a gentle prophet, skewering the inattentiveness, emotionalism, irrationality, hypocrisy, and alarmism that led to unjust and destructive policies. He hailed, instead, the enlightened, forward-thinking, disinterested, and fraternal impulses that promised a better future. In one wartime fantasy, Darling depicted a businessman and workingman becoming solicitous brothers in the trenches despite their mutual hatred in peacetime. Darling wrote a remarkably sober-minded assessment of the Soviet Union after a brief visit there in 1931. It revealed much about his temperament, condemning authoritarianism but issuing a biting warning as well. "If you are … afflicted with conservatism, one dose of Russia will make you well," Darling wrote. "Every American ought to make a trip to Russia at least once...

Redescription of the Siberian species Pardosa jeniseica (Araneae: Lycosidae).

The male of Pardosa jeniseica, collected in the East-Kazakhstan Area, was first illustrated in Eskov Marusik (1995). The authorship of the species was given as "Zyuzin, 1991", because A.A. Zyuzin informed the authors in 1990 that a description of the species was in press. Because no such description ever appeared the authorship was given to Eskov Marusik, and a single male specimen from East-Kazakhstan is now considered to be the holotype. It is kept in Zoological Museum of the Moscow State University. Esyunin et al. (1999) illustrated and described a female from the Urals thought to be conspecific with P. jeniseica. Conspecifity of the illustrated specimen with P. jeniseica was doubted by Marusik et al. (2000). Kronestedt (2013) was the first to illustrate the epigyne of P. jeniseica and Azarkina Trilikauskas (2013) provided both verbal and illustrated descriptions of the female, and its epigyne and endogyne. Both sexes taken from one locality were never depicted, nor was peculiar pubescence of the male's leg I. Therefore, I decided to provide detailed illustrations and a verbal description of this species based on specimens from the place considered to be the type locality.Specimens were photographed at the Zoological Museum (University of Turku, Finland) with a Canon EOS 7D camera attached to an Olympus SZX16 stereomicroscope and a SEM JEOL JSM-5200 scanning microscope. Digital images were montaged using Helicon focus 3.10 image stacking software. All measurements are given in millimeters. The following abbreviations are used for leg segments: Fe femur, Pa patella, Ti tibia, Mt metatarsus, Ta tarsus; leg spination abbreviations: d dorsal, p prolateral, r retrolateral, v ventral. Material used in this study is deposited in the Moscow State University (ZMMU) and Zoological Museum of the University of Turku (ZMUT). I thank Seppo Koponen (Turku, Finland) for providing museum facilities and Don Buckle (Saskatoon, Canada) for editing English in the earlier draft of the manuscript.

Improving Security for Natural Science Collections at the Michigan State University Museum

Established in 1857, the Michigan State University (MSU) Museum houses natural science collections that include 117,000 research and teaching specimens of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, and vertebrate fossils. These collections are worldwide in scope and provide a record of biodiversity that ranges from 1844 to the present day. The collections contain specimens of rare, endangered, threatened, and extinct species. Within each vertebrate discipline, specimens are cataloged into designated research or teaching collections; these are housed within multiple research and preservation spaces, occupying 678 square meters. Currently, 394 natural science specimens are on exhibit in the Museum's gallery spaces, which include an additional 1,830 square meters. Over the past three decades, the Museum has experienced a number of thefts from both collections and exhibit areas, with the most recent specimen theft occurring in 2011: a silky anteater (Cyclopes didactylus) stolen from the Museum's rainforest habitat diorama. That theft, along with the history of the others, initiated a series of improvements to the Museum's security. These included changes in personnel access to the Museum building and to collections areas; replacement and installation of new technological equipment, including key-card access and camera systems Museum-wide; and revisions of associated policies and procedures. These effectively closed "loopholes" that formerly compromised security best practice. Targeted improvements have been made at the building, gallery, elevator, room, and cabinet levels, and included specialized accommodation for specimens that are particularly sensitive, such as rhino horn (in keeping with Natural Sciences Collections Association guidance). In addition, the Museum modified operating procedures for behind-the-scenes tours of the research and collections spaces (for example, staff-to-visitor ratio and policy for use of imaging and recording equipment).

ACCIDENTAL ARCHAEOLOGICAL FINDS IN THE SOUTH AREAS OF THE LOWER TOM’ RIVER VALLEY

The article introduces for scientific use and achaeological interpretation the items from the collection of the Kemerovo Regional Local History Museum, Museum-Preserve "Tomskaya Pisanitsa", the Archaeology, Ethnography and Ecology of Siberia museum (Kemerovo State University Museum) and the Museum of Archaeology and Ethnography (Tomsk State University). The methodology of the research is based on the definition of the term «incidental find» for particular cases of incidental finding of an archaeological site which allows one to use this type of sources for historical and cultural reconstructions in that region for the first time. The research applies the methods of mapping and landscape-geomorphological analysis, comparative and typological method, periodization method. The article determines the main meaning of accidental finds for updating the archaeological map of the least researched Tom region areas connected to the territory of Kemerovo and watershed areas of the right bank of the River Tom. The work outlines the chronological group of the items and presents some conclusions about the possible connection of the stone tools with those from Izylinka, Irbinsko-Novo Kuskovo or Krokhalevo Neolithic-Early period of the Developed Bronze Age settlements; about the accidentally found knives and diggers confirming Irmen cultural domination in Late Bronze period and exchanges with cross-border cultural groups; about typological proximity of a number of Scythian period accidental finds with the same period complex in the Middle Yenissey area, Achinsk-Mariinsk forest-steppe and Tomsk Ob River area; about the association of the Kulay and Post-Kulay period findings with ritual practices at cult places.

Quilts: Conscience of the Human Spirit: The Life of Nelson Mandela: Tributes by Quilt Artists from South Africa and the United States (MacDowell and Mazloomi)

This work is a book review considering the title Quilts: Conscience of the Human Spirit: The Life of Nelson Mandela: Tributes by Quilt Artists from South Africa and the United States: A Collaborative Project of Michigan State University Museum, Women of Color Quilters Network, and South African Quilt Artists by Marsha MacDowell and Carolyn L. Mazloomi.

Communicating the Value of Cartoon Art Across University Classrooms: Experiences From the Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum

ABSTRACTThis article is an exploration of the varying applications of comics and cartoon art as primary resources and pedagogical tools within the university setting. Following some background information on cartoon art forms including early American newspaper comics, nineteenth century humor serials, political cartoons and manga, the article explores how the perception of comics has changed and suggests ways librarians can work with academics to better utilize comics and cartoon art as educational resources. Drawing on the literature and the author's experience of working with Faculty and students at The Ohio State University, this article highlights ways to embed comics and cartoon art into the curriculum in disciplines ranging from Women's Studies to Psychology, ESL, History, Fashion, and more. The article aims to serve as a springboard for “thinking outside of the box” to maximize the value and use of library collections.

Quilts and Human Rights

examination of the women who either perpetuate or rebel against the privileged class. Adele Newson-Horst Morgan State University Sophia Kingshill. Mermaids. Toller Fratrum, UK. Little Toller Books (Dufour Editions, distr.). 2016 (©2015). 148 pages. For many children in Western culture, the first introduction to mermaids is via Disney ’s cheerful cinematic adaptation of The Little Mermaid or depictions derived therefrom . But even a little exploration reveals that the original story as told by Hans Christian Andersen (not to mention earlier variations) was far darker. In fact, mermaid mythology has an ancient, complex, and haunting history. As a folkloric figure, the mermaid continues to hold a powerful sway, though we are often at a loss to explain why. Sophia Kingshill explains that “it’s always a risk to meet a mermaid.” Beginning with an intriguing and recent mermaid depiction in Madrid, Kinghill explores the background and many incarnations of the mermaid myth around the world, accompanied with gorgeous photos of paintings, sculptures, and engravings. The mermaid has been everything from temptress to wicked monster to healer to soulless creature yearning for immortality. At times she has been described as part serpent, fish, vapor, or bird; in some instances, she transforms completely into a seal or porpoise. The author carefully compares and describes the various incarnations and relatives of the mermaid, including the siren. Tellingly , the mermaid often represents wild freedom and independence, perhaps indicating why, after thousands of years, she continues to speak to land dwellers, and why she has a distinct feminist appeal. As Kingshill points out, “Never does she elect to stay on shore.” In the chapter “Mermaid Wives and Other Folklore,” Kingshill navigates several stories that describe a beautiful woman marrying a human man, often after he has stolen an object from her, only for her to return to the sea years later. Whether the reader is a fan of art history , folklore, feminist history, or mermaids specifically, Mermaids offers an engrossing but accessible study accompanied by photos of art from all over the globe, spanning centuries. One of the most powerful pieces included is Evelyn de Morgan’s Sea Maidens (1886), depicting a “marine sisterhood as mutually supportive, neither coy nor menacing.” Mermaids is a fast read but one worth revisiting many times. Erin Elise Lofties Norman, Oklahoma Marsha MacDowell, Mary Worrall, Lynne Swanson & Beth Donaldson. Quilts and Human Rights. Lincoln. University of Nebraska Press. 2016. 210 pages. In this lushly illustrated exhibition catalog , Michigan State University Museum curators Marsha MacDowell, Mary Worrall, Lynne Swanson, and collections assistant Beth Donaldson piece together a history of human rights–related quilt making, quilters’ narratives, and analysis of contemporary textiles. The authors survey quilting history in Europe and the United States, noting textiles made in support of abolition, temperance, women ’s suffrage, and civil rights alongside more recent quilts responding to incarceration and violence. Particularly poignant are quilts stitched by indigenous hands that adopted the textile techniques of their subjugators to comment on their own loss of rights, including the gutwrenchingly beautiful (but too briefly discussed) Queen Lili’uokalani’s Quilt, made by the Hawaiian monarch during her imprisonment in 1895. Although the authors claim to offer a global history, Hanadi Al-Samman Anxiety of Erasure: Trauma, Authorship, and the Diaspora in Arab Women’s Writings Syracuse University Press This volume examines how Arab women exiled by war or oppression have used writing to transform their dislocation into creative power. Al-Samman examines the writing of six women from the past fifty years to discover the threads that draws their work into communication with one another. Together, they address the paradoxical states that arise from being forced, as a woman, from one’s homeland. Zahia Rahmani France, Story of a Childhood Trans. Lara Vergnaud Yale University Press Equal parts novel and memoir, France, Story of a Childhood takes an unflinching look at the complex relationship between France and Algeria and, more specifically, at the fates of those Algerians who fought on behalf of France during the Algerian War. Rahmani doesn’t limit her observations to her own personal history as she poses difficult questions about assimilation and the culpability of children for the “sins”of their fathers. Nota Bene WORLDLIT...

Joyce Wellman

Joyce Wellman Charles H. Rowell Click for larger view View full resolution Photograph courtesy of Sharon Farmer Portfolio of Artwork 977-980 [End Page 883] In 1981, Joyce Wellman (b. 1949), a native of Brooklyn, NY, decided to make Washington, DC, her home, where she continues to reside. She received a BA degree from City College of New York in 1972, and five years later she completed the master’s degree at the University of Massachusetts. During the late 1980s, she also studied painting as a graduate student at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), and during the late 1990s she received the MFA from MICA’s Mt. Royal School of Art. She has exhibited her artwork in various art venues including the Georgia Museum of Art (Athens), North Carolina State University Museum Gallery (Greensboro), The David C. Driskell Center at the University of Maryland College Park, Washington’s Heurich Gallery (DC), and Kenya National Museum (Nairobi). Joyce Wellman describes her career in visual art as a journey from printmaking to abstract painting. “My artistic journey began in the early seventies when I was introduced to printmaking,” she says, and worked in various printmaking studios in New York City. There I was mentored by a host of artists in New York City. By 1981 I had relocated to Washington DC, to work and grow professionally. During the 1970s and early-1980s my concern was discovering a means by which to create an art vocabulary and grammar that included vibrant colors, cryptic marks, shapes and symbols that referenced mathematics, anthropomorphic forms and personal experiences and references to my growing up in a household where “The numbers” were played. I was on a journey to create work in the printmaking medium that became vehicles by which the viewer could journey through contemplative space. While in the mid-1980s I continued to make prints, my focus turned to painting, mixed media, and drawing. Most important to me of course was the development of my artistic voice as a painter and printmaker. It has always been through abstraction that I have sought to express my feelings. The use of intuition, textures, vivid colors, mark making, and a process-orientated approach aided me in digging deeply into my heart to express myself. Intuition aided by the use of stream consciousness fed the palette of my work from 1985 through the early-1990s. During this time I was using oil paint stick on paper to create intuitive large-scale color, charcoal, graphite, and gouache mixed media drawings. Intuition was to be the means by which the viewer could find his or her way around my work. During this period I processed my work by constructing, deconstructing, and reconstructing it. That meant tearing, pasting, coloring—the scrambling and unscrambling of ideas and processes. It was what I imagined that scientists do as they process combinations of DNA particles in search of a mapping mechanism for the human gene “scape.” In my case, I was in search of a means of creating a truly emotional work! In my recent body of work, I continue to be process-oriented. The works thematically have become more non-objective yet remain cryptically symbolic—even emotional. Thematically, I use abstract geometry as a means of connecting the viewers with simplicity and therefore to the spiritual in art. The vocabulary of my work continues to include textures, mark making, mixed media, and referential symbols, but includes the introduction of a new palette. It allows me to apply many layers of vibrant, [End Page 884] transparent color to the geometric and mathematically inspired content and canvases—a layering that is symbolic of the multi-faceted nature of human existence. from http://joycewellman.com/artisticjourney.shtml In August 2015 Joyce Wellman and I completed a short interview via email, which is represented below—an exchange that I thought would give her viewers another dimension of the landscape from which she creates. ROWELL: You have mounted online a brief statement about what led you to visual art. You started this journey a few years ago. Why do you still create visual art? What do the practice and the production of art offer you personally? What...

Cultivating Connectivity: Folklife and Inclusive Excellence in Museums

AbstractToday there is a growing global awareness of the need to address issues related to the safeguarding and use of both tangible and intangible heritage. By engaging with communities in the documentation of local cultures—especially their folklife, or in other words, their traditional intangible cultural heritage—museums can create collections that will serve as foundations for museum research, exhibitions, and programs that have more resonance with and relevance for those communities. Interactions of these kinds—in particular those of the Smithsonian's Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage and the Michigan State University Museum, home of the Michigan Traditional Arts Program, as well as collaborations between the Smithsonian Folklife Festival and the Great Lakes Folk Festival, and other programs around the world—have served as important platforms for public discourse about a variety of issues and have produced programs and exhibitions both at home and around the world.

Elementary Reflections: Case Study of a Collaborative Museum/School Curatorial Project

The Gifted Specialist from the Florida State University Schools (K-12) and the Curator of Education from the Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts planned a year-long project in which FSUS gifted elementary students (second to fifth grade) curated a one-gallery exhibition, entitled Elementary Reflections, from the museum's permanent collection. This project weaved together several strands of practice and thinking: museum practicalities, philosophies and pedagogical concepts that currently undergird museum education programs, K-12 student learning in general (Common Core Standards), Frameworks of Gifted Education, and university level museum studies. As a case study, this project provides a model for other museum education programs. This museum/school collaboration provided a community service by creating real-world opportunity for the application of skills and knowledge for both elementary and university students. Elementary Reflections encouraged the development of new members of the museum audience who will become knowledgeable users of museums as they become adults.

Elementary Reflections: Case Study of a Collaborative Museum/School Curatorial Project

AbstractThe Gifted Specialist from the Florida State University Schools (K-12) and the Curator of Education from the Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts planned a year-long project in which FSUS gifted elementary students (second to fifth grade) curated a one-gallery exhibition, entitled Elementary Reflections, from the museum's permanent collection. This project weaved together several strands of practice and thinking: museum practicalities, philosophies and pedagogical concepts that currently undergird museum education programs, K-12 student learning in general (Common Core Standards), Frameworks of Gifted Education, and university level museum studies. As a case study, this project provides a model for other museum education programs. This museum/school collaboration provided a community service by creating real-world opportunity for the application of skills and knowledge for both elementary and university students. Elementary Reflections encouraged the development of new members of the museu...

Weavings of War, Fabrics of Memory (review)

Reviewed by: Weavings of War, Fabrics of Memory Lisa Gabbert Weavings of War, Fabrics of Memory. Produced through the collaboration of City Lore, the Michigan State University Museum, and the Vermont Folklife Center. Curated by Ariel Zeitlin Cooke, with consulting curators Marsha MacDowell and Steve Zeitlin. This traveling exhibit appeared at the Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, VT (March 4–June 4, 2005); Erie Art Museum, Erie, PA, (June 18–September 18, 2005); Design Gallery, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (October 8–December 11, 2005); Michigan State University Museum, East Lansing, MI (January 22–August 13, 2006); Puffin Gallery, New York, NY (September 5–October 15, 2006); Institute for Community Research, Hartford, CT (October 27, 2006–January 15, 2007); University Galleries, Dorothy P. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL, (February 9–April 11, 2007); San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles, San Jose, CA, (July 17– September 23, 2007); Alliance for Varied Arts, Thatcher-Young Mansion, Logan, UT (October 5–December 1, 2007). A Web site documenting the exhibit is now available on the Internet at http://www.citylore.org/wow/index.html. Weavings of War, Fabrics of Memory is an exhibition of international textiles spanning a number of countries and ethnic/linguistic groups. Bound together by the themes of war, armed conflict, displacement, and rupture, works in the exhibit include post-apartheid South African memory cloths, Hmong story cloths, arpilleras from Chile and Peru, and war rugs from Central Asia. I brought the exhibit to Logan, Utah, in the fall of 2007 and organized lectures and films around it. It was displayed at the Thatcher-Young Mansion, the final stop on its three-year tour. An exhibit catalogue of the same title was edited by Ariel Zeitlin Cooke and Marsha MacDowell (Michigan State University Press, 2005) and contains essays by Zeitlin Cooke, MacDowell, James E. Young, and Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, as well as artist profiles. What makes the pieces in this exhibit unique is that their iconography features modern warfare and violence particular to their regions of origin. Scenes of executions and ethnic cleansings, as well as military motifs such as tanks, grenades, and helicopters are woven, stitched, or embroidered into fabric. Hmong-embroidered textiles, for example, illustrate in brightly colored threads villagers being massacred by Pathêt Lao soldiers. One portion of a South African memory cloth shows a person being "necklaced"—that is, set on fire by placing a burning tire around the neck. In U.S. contexts, perhaps the most politically charged objects are the 9/11 rugs, although they are not the exhibit's primary focus. 9/11 rugs are usually made in Afghanistan or Pakistan and depict the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center. As Zeitlin Cooke observes in the exhibition catalogue, the rugs emerged on the international market only a few months after the World Trade Center was destroyed (p. 61). One rug displayed in the exhibit is set in red, white, and blue colors and shows each Twin Tower with an airplane crashing into it, sending out dust or flames. A helicopter rests atop one building. The U.S. and Afghanistan flags are depicted side by side in the middle; a dove of peace rests along the bottom by the letters "USA." At the top is woven "11 September in 2001." The other rug is similar, but specifically identifies the airplanes as "American" and "USA." It also includes the words, "The Terrors were in America." All of the displayed items draw on traditional textile methods to illustrate modern theaters of terror. The exhibit demonstrates how the textiles function as documentaries to record the experiences of ordinary people. The curators smartly [End Page 349] frame the objects as survivor stories, rendered in pictures instead of words. They do not represent the perspective of the military, social elites, or the literati but rather the perspective of a sector of society that otherwise is denied access to public forums—displaced, largely poor, semiliterate or nonliterate women and men. The 9/11 rugs are not strictly documentary, but they also can be understood as survivor stories. According to collector Kevin Sudeith (personal communication), the sources for these rugs are not...

A Phytogeographical and Ecological Study ofPrenanthes crepidineaMichaux (Asteraceae)

ABSTRACT This study determines the current and historic distributions of Prenanthes crepidinea Michaux (Asteraceae: Lactuceae) and describes its habitat and life history. A phytogeographical study based on herbarium material was conducted to delimit historic and current distributions of P. crepidinea. Ecological data were gathered from herbarium specimens. A literature search was conducted for information about P. crepidinea to enhance the herbarium study. An in-depth field study over two seasons, 1998 and 1999, was made at three extant sites, providing a characteristic life history and habitat description for the species. Associated plant species, pollinators, and parasites were investigated, with voucher specimens for all associated plant species deposited in the herbaria of Youngstown State University (YUO) and Carnegie Museum of Natural History (CM).

Bill Blackbeard: The Collector Who Rescued the Comics

The Journal of American CultureVolume 32, Issue 3 p. 244-256 Bill Blackbeard: The Collector Who Rescued the Comics Jenny E. Robb, Jenny E. Robb The Ohio State University Cartoon Library & Museum (formerly the Cartoon Research Library)Search for more papers by this author Jenny E. Robb, Jenny E. Robb The Ohio State University Cartoon Library & Museum (formerly the Cartoon Research Library)Search for more papers by this author First published: 09 September 2009 https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1542-734X.2009.00714.xCitations: 4 Jenny E. Robb is Associate Curator and Assistant Professor at The Ohio State University Cartoon Library & Museum (formerly the Cartoon Research Library). Before coming to Ohio State in 2005, she served as Curator of the Cartoon Art Museum in San Francisco for five years. She holds masters, degrees in history and museum studies from Syracuse University. Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume32, Issue3September 2009Pages 244-256 RelatedInformation