And the semester begins...

First week of class is almost over. I'm ecstatic, not only about my classes, but also by the overlap and the connections between at least 3 of them. This blog/journal is mainly for Dr. Stabile's museum studies class, but I'm sure my popular culture and visual rhetoric classes will chime into these musings. The title is from our first day of class (and I"m so happy it was available). Dr. Stabile teaches in English, so she had an interesting approach to defining museums. Did you know that museum is also used as verb? This action, museuming, seems to imply a more active role for visitors of a museum. No more wandering around the hallways with empty minds, soaking in the information in order to regurgitate those values verbatim. Don't you just love that? Now, that I've explained the basics, off we go!

Our first reading was from the 1970's and it showed. This is him, quoting an advert, but the word "hip" is used. Another indication of when it's written, I discovered talking with my prof after class about my questions. Cameron talks about the need for reform in museums and the need for the continuation of the museum as the temple, while enabling the public's voice in a forum. He maintains that the forum and the temple should be separate, even suggests separate buildings. Dr. Stabile mentioned that this, for the most part, seems to have changed. More professionals questioning and allowing exhibits/museums to be questioned. But while reading Cameron's, I had to stop and ask myself why I hated that idea of separating the roles.

My feelings are explained when I look closer at the words. The temple is untouchable. Cameron says, "the museum provides opportunity for reaffirmation of the faith (67) (emphasis mine)." Seriously? We have a building where we worship ourselves unquestioningly? Of course, I now believe that nothing should go unquestioned, because there is always another side of the story. What I believe is not absoultely right, because what someone else believes is not absolutely wrong. These thoughts, of course, are the consquences of rhetorical scholarship. Even in my PopC class today, we discussed how the desk may be real, but society created our understanding of the desk. On the other hand, the forum is the icon of democracy. A place where everyone's voice could be heard. I realize that this is idealistic, but impossibility of achieving the idea does not negate the necessity of the space. Especially in museums, where our identities as a citizens of a nation and of the world are fortified. The word signifies something inherently good and democratic.

Time's running out, but I must say that my understanding of the words temple and forum. Democracy and the forum, are some of those fabulous American terms that we don't usually question why they're so great, like freedom and dreams. My generation, especially in the last election, showed that we were susceptible to the feeling a kinship with the movements that seem to help us maintain these ideals. And in my personal life, blind faith has horrible repercussions.