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This blog was created for the Spring 2017 Washington, DC seminar for the Johns Hopkins University MA in Museum Studies program.

DC Day 11

Today was our last day visiting museums, and I must say it was disappointing. We visited the International Spy Museum, and I found myself struggling to find stories in the exhibits. The museum admits to the faults of the museum: lack of stories in the exhibit, confusing areas, and crowding, which is why the museum… Continue reading DC Day 11

DC Day 10

We visited the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM) today and toured the special exhibition, Some Were Neighbors: Collaboration and Complicity in the Holocaust. Generally, people think of the Holocaust in black and white terms with three main parts: victim, perpetrator, and bystander, but USHMM digs deeper into the complicated story of the Holocaust. The… Continue reading DC Day 10

DC Day 9

Today, we visited two exhibits at the National Museum of Natural History. We visited the Ocean Hall and the Hall of Human Origins. Our guide was one of the museum’s paleontologists, who informed us of how the museum approached the exhibits, and some of the changes that have occurred in the display of natural history… Continue reading DC Day 9

DC Day 8

You may have noticed that days 6 and 7 are missing, well it was the weekend, so I took a break from the blog. Today was day 8 of the seminar, which was spent at George Washington’s Mount Vernon. The focus of today was tackling the conversation of slavery in museums. Mount Vernon recently opened… Continue reading DC Day 8