Media Release
November 28, 2006
Museums: a future in history?
What is the cultural function of museums? In a time where we are
constantly forging forward, are museums ─ which are essentially a
“record of the past” ─ at risk of being stuck in a time warp?
Respected international sociologist, Professor Tony Bennett, offers
answers to these and other questions during his visit to Adelaide this
week.
In a public lecture entitled Habitus, aesthetics, politics, Prof Bennett
will discuss a wide range of cultural topics, from the sociology of
culture (with special reference to questions of culture and governance),
to cultural and media policy, and relations of class, culture and social
exclusion.
One of the main themes for the lecture will be the history and theory of
museums ─ with a focus on the evolution and cultural function of the
modern museum.
Prof Bennett argues that museums are moving with the times, and are at
the centre of modern relations of culture and government. They are
redefining themselves in the brave new world.
Prof Bennett's stimulating theories develop and challenge common
perceptions of the museum which, he says, are not just a place of
science and education but places of etiquette and social routine.
Much of Habitus, aesthetics, politics is drawn largely from Pierre
Bourdieu’s work on how tastes are divided between the polarised classes
of bourgeois and working-class.
He will also draw on results from his recently completed study which
found people’s cultural activities and tastes are directly related to
their socio-economic status, level of educational, ethnicity, gender and
employment.
The central argument of the lecture will be that Western aesthetics,
both in the past and today, have functioned to exclude the working
classes from full political participation.
The lecture is abundant with case studies from Australia, the US and UK.
Professor Tony Bennett is Professor of Sociology at the Open University
(UK), a Director of the Economic and Social Science Research Centre on
Socio-Cultural Change (CRESC), and a Professorial Fellow in the Faculty
of Arts at the University of Melbourne.
Professor Tony Bennett Public Lecture
Tuesday 28th November, 2006
University of South Australia, Magill campus
H1-44, Amy Wheaton building
starts 6PM
Contact for interview
-
For an interview with Professor Tony Bennett please contact Dr Susan Luckman office (08) 8302 4152 email susan.luckman@unisa.edu.au
Media contact
- Rebecca Gill office (08) 8302 0096 mobile 0404 85 7977 email rebecca.gill@unisa.edu.au