I am a hyper-curious person, and curiosity is an important value in my life … as well as an important impact of museums. Here's a new installment of some of my wide-ranging reads (mostly non-fiction). I hope to hear recommendations from you! Crap: A History of Cheap Stuff in America, by Wendy Woloson
Look around you. Do you see a lot of crap? (I know I do.) Crap is pervasive in our modern lives. This delightful book explores the history of American crap (from tinkers to the Franklin Mint to Beanie Babies!), its meaning in our lives, the psychological effects of it, and hints at the negative impact its creation and disposal has on the environment. As a lapsed material cultural historian, I delighted in delving into crap, and thinking about the role of crap in my own life. The Cooking Gene, by Michael Twitty As a Georgian in Seattle, sometimes I viscerally miss the southern food that I grew up around. I'm also interested in how complicated our past is. While I knew southern food has a complex history, Michael Twitty's book made me think about it more rigorously and exposed far more nuance than I knew. But my biggest takeaway was rethinking genealogy. As a white person, the obsession of other whites about their genealogy often made me uncomfortable, as if it was a way of proving superiority (along with the privilege of being able to do it relatively easily). Twitty points out that for African Americans, it is a reclamation of family and identity. I'll think about genealogy differently, thanks to him. The Library of Legends, by Janie Chang At the beginning of WWII, Chinese universities moved inland and carried with them treasures of learning in the form of ancient books and manuscripts. This novel imagines one such journey, as students hand-carry The Library of Legends on their trek inland, facing exhaustion, hunger, and exposure to crippling poverty along the way. As they do so, the immortals across China awaken and have their own exodus. I loved this book for so many reasons, but my mind keeps turning back to the question "when did magic leave this world?" The Library of Legends presents a compelling answer. Have a suggestion for my reading list? Email it to me at susie (at) wilkeningconsulting (dot) com.
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I am a hyper-curious person, and curiosity is an important value in my life … as well as an important impact of museums. But curiosity isn't limited to museums, and can be hard to sustain through adulthood. By sharing some of my curious paths through reading, I'm hoping to reinforce how important wide-ranging curiosity is to our practice and spark new conversations that may seem unrelated to museums, but deeply matter to how we do our work. After all, as museums we cover a variety of topics. Our curiosity should also be as omnivorous! To that end, here's a new installment of some of my wide-ranging reads (mostly non-fiction) I hope to hear recommendations from you! Visionary Women, by Andrea Barnet. The 20th century saw radical change, and four women were crucial in helping us rethink how we used chemicals, thought about our cities, viewed animals, and considered what we ate. A collection of mini-biographies of Rachel Carson, Jane Jacobs, Jane Goodall, and Alice Waters, this book helped me think about how these women were radical in their time, yet deeply influenced mainstream behavior today. May their influence continue. (BTW, this book was well-written, making it an effortless read as well.) Born in the USA: Birth, Commemoration, and American Public Memory, ed. By Seth C. Bruggeman This volume, published in 2012, feels a bit quaint as it didn't imagine the extreme nationalism that the election of 2016 gave voice to. Reading this in 2020, it also felt like a constant talking about everything but the elephant in the room, the elephant being that historic birthplaces were often founded to honor white men and as a fearful reaction to a diversifying America. The introduction did acknowledge this, "… each one was born of the fear that its story about the past might be eclipsed by a competing narrative," there was an essay about the W.E.B. DuBois birthplace, and the conclusion addresses gender. But overall what a lost opportunity to think more critically about why so many of these places are preserved as museums. I wish that writers in this book had been brave enough to address this directly. A Generation of Sociopaths: How The Baby Boomers Betrayed America, by Bruce Cannon Gibney. It is so tempting to blame the ills of American society on a single generation. Wouldn't it be nice and convenient (especially if one is, say, a Gen Xer like the author … and me)? Tons of data is thrown at this primary thesis, but the central premise fails to convince because there are external factors that come into play and because it is dangerous to lump a single generation together in this (condemnatory) way. Additionally, while there are many ills we can blame on the Boomers, it is an open question if another generation, given the same circumstances, would behave differently. So read it for the provocation, consider the merits critically, and remember: people are idiosyncratic and everyone (and every generation) is going to respond to their environment and situation differently. Learning and progress are not linear. And we all have to take responsibility and roll up our sleeves to solve our problems. (I also noted that the author extols younger generations for all the good they do … such as the unmitigated good of social media. Yeah, you read that right. The author also was an early funder of Facebook, so he may be a bit biased. And clueless.) Have a suggestion for my reading list? Email it to me at susie (at) wilkeningconsulting (dot) com. I love infographics. I present much of my research via infographics. Sadly, I'm not that talented (though I am pretty proud of my Data Stories and work with a fantastic graphic designer to make my ugly sketches into beautiful reality). I also love to share my infographic inspiration with you! Here, in my third installment of "Infographic Inspiration," I focus on how graphics can be used to tell a story. 1 - Making Comics. Since my Data Stories are narrative in form, I picked this up to see how thinking about comics could help me think through how I present the Data Stories I share. It certainly has done that, but in reality, it helped me think through how we could better practice deliberate eudaemonic curiosity through how we view the world and make sense of it graphically. Citation: Barry, Lynda. Making Comics. Montreal: Drawn & Quarterly, 2019.
2 - Design Is Storytelling. I've been known to say that every survey I write is intended to allow a respondent to tell me their story. This book only reinforced that thinking. Similarly, when a visitor experiences an exhibition, there are two main storylines to consider: the one the museum is telling through the narrative arc of the exhibition (or a virtual program), but also the one the visitor is living as they make their way through the experience. The question is … where is the call to action, the rising action, the climax, and then conclusion/knowledge built? If any of this thinking intrigues you, pick up this book to think through how your museum develops exhibitions, virtual content, etc. … and yes, infographics. Citation: Lupton, Ellen. Design is Storytelling. New York: Cooper Hewitt, 2017. 3 - Info We Trust. Part history, part meditation, part science, part technology, part philosophy, and part theory. The book is hard to describe. Yet I loved the dive it took into how we all make sense of information. Did it have concrete advice for me? Not necessarily. But it has made me a better thinker and synthesizer. And that will serve me well in my own Data Stories. Bonus: Chapter 11 dissects museum experiences and the data of an exhibition (including objects, labels, and meaning-making). Citation: Andrews, RJ. Info We Trust: How to Inspire the World with Data. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley, 2019. If you come across an infographic you think works particularly well, send it my way at susie (at) wilkeningconsulting (dot) com! I am a hyper-curious person, and curiosity is an important value in my life … as well as an important impact of museums. But curiosity isn't limited to museums, and can be hard to sustain through adulthood. By sharing some of my curious paths through reading, I'm hoping to reinforce how important wide-ranging curiosity is to our practice and spark new conversations that may seem unrelated to museums, but deeply matter to how we do our work. After all, as museums we cover a variety of topics. Our curiosity should also be as omnivorous! To that end, here's a new installment of some of my wide-ranging reads (mostly non-fiction) I hope to hear recommendations from you! Black Lives, Native Lands, White Worlds: A History of Slavery in New England, by Jared Hardesty.
For most people, including many history museum-goers, slavery = the South. But slavery thrived in New England, and this book frames the expanse and depth to which it took and how New Englanders profited mightily from it. I found this book to be an easy-to-read survey of a complicated and challenging topic … and illustrates how much more there is to learn from the past, especially when it comes to topics some would prefer to ignore. Past Imperfect: Facts, Fictions, Fraud, by Peter Charles Hoffer The first half of the book is deeply appreciated for laying out the history of American history. That is, what historians of the past were trying to accomplish, what their standards were, and why the white celebratory history they recorded was so deliberate and purposeful. Of course, that has become the canon for many, making it an obstacle to having more people accept a more inclusive history that is also more fraught (in that it lays out how white Europeans were not always the benevolent masters of those they enslaved, for just one example). Understanding this history of American history is extremely helpful for understanding the viewpoints of many of our visitors, as well as what is at stake for those visitors when a more inclusive history is shared. If we can't navigate their fear, our work is much harder. (Second half of book explores case studies of historians who have broken ethical rules; interesting, but not why I picked it up.) The Widows of Malabar Hill, by Sujata Massey I loved this novel so much, as it hit me just right as a mind-opening book to another country and its culture, religions, human rights, and past. Perveen Mistry is a female lawyer in 1920 Bombay, restricted by her gender, yet finding a pathway to assist women in need of help. There's mystery, there's unfairness, and there is hope. I loved stretching my worldview and empathy. It was a delight to read and I can't wait to read the sequel. Additional note: Perveen's experiences also give us a different view of quarantining that is downright horrifying. If you read it, you'll see exactly what I mean. Have a suggestion for my reading list? Email it to me at susie (at) wilkeningconsulting (dot) com. ![]() Why I picked it up: My research keeps showing that people who are curious have better overall outcomes in life. That is, taking in a breadth of information through informal learning appears to give people greater resources from which to draw, helping them in their educations, their careers, their family formation, and their health and well-being. When I heard about this book last year, I immediately put it on my to-read list as it seemed to have a similar finding … it just took me over a year to get to it. Thesis of book: There is a lot of conventional wisdom that in order to be successful in the 21st century, you have to specialize and go deep in your area of expertise. But that may not be an accurate statement for most of us. In this book, Epstein suggests that if we commit early and deeply to one thing, we may not actually be playing to our own strengths, and while some will still (luckily) flourish, more won't. But if we have a chance to sample many things, during a period he calls the "sampling period," we can suss out what our own strengths are more effectively, focus later … and have years of experiences from which to draw as we go deep into our areas of expertise. And that cross-pollination matters. It makes for better inventors, innovators, and thinkers as they draw from their different experiences to enhance and create in their own work. In fact, going deep can make us blinkered if we don't balance it with some breadth … and our work can suffer. How this intersects with museum research/practice: Museums, being in the curiosity business, are perfectly positioned to give visitors breadth by introducing new topics, ideas, perspectives, and areas of interest. And that is how some museum-goers use museums, especially those that are eudaemonically curious: expanding their minds and making connections between things that seem disconnected (or, in other words, not being "cognitively entrenched"). But many museum-goers use museums differently, primarily for deepening knowledge in their interest areas. Some even resist content that takes them out of their comfort-zone and shares different worldviews. How, then, can museums be more deliberate about stretching people's interests to new areas, sparking curiosity and expanding worldviews? And how do we do this in ways that even the most resistant visitor welcomes? THAT is a big, tricky question (and one very much on my mind). Read or skip? In many ways, this is a typical journalistic take on a topic that, on the surface, appears confounding to most. If it pretty formulaic in that way: full of anecdotes and stories, reads easily, a bit repetitive, and refers to scholars as well as practitioners. It is not an academic read. So if you want an easy and enjoyable read on the subject, go for it. There wasn't much (or really anything) my research disagreed with. But if you are looking for new insights beyond this review, then peruse the book's bibliography and go deep (and broad) as desired. Or email me at susie (at) wilkeningconsulting (dot) com and ask for my running notes. Full citation: Epstein, David. Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World. New York: Riverhead Books, 2019. Have a suggestion for my reading list? Email it to me at susie (at) wilkeningconsulting (dot) com. ![]() Why I picked it up: I came across the phrase "moving at the speed of trust," referring to the pacing of social justice work. I have been struggling with how to talk about the pacing of inclusive work in museums, especially given how some audiences would respond more effectively to a more measured pace (versus a fast pace that might alienate them), and this phrase struck me as helpful. So, I followed the source and it led to this book. What I learned: There were some key concepts that I found helpful in this book:
While these concepts excited me … the rest of the book, to be honest, was a letdown. I wanted to love this book and tell everyone to read it … but I didn't. Overall, I felt the book meandered and needed a strong editor, and when there were sections that were super-clear and concise I became even more frustrated because the rest of the book wasn't similarly clear. I skimmed a lot. There were also whole sections that felt very self-help … and while that isn't a bad thing (and is often a good thing), that wasn't what I was looking for. Yet there were also alternate approaches to others and societal issues that I have not considered before, and I am now chewing on. I don't know that they will ever become my approaches, but I am willing to consider them as valid. Read or skip? Likely skip. I pulled from it what I felt was relevant (the concepts above), but I found my frustrations with the writing were enough to make me not recommend. Unless you found something of particular interest in this review, then skip. I'm still glad to have at least skimmed it. Full citation: Brown, Adrienne Maree. Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds. Chico, CA: AK Press, 2017. Have a suggestion for my reading list? Email it to me at susie (at) wilkeningconsulting (dot) com. ![]() Why I picked it up: see my review of the introduction to this book: "The Field of Prosocial Behavior: An Introduction and Overview" What you need to know: Part 1 focused on prosocial behavior at the individual level. I found the following articles particularly interesting, and have bulleted out my takeaways to make it easier to internalize. It's still a very long post, mostly because I found so much to be relevant. Finally, you'll see I added commentary that I connected with museums, our current state mid-pandemic, and other research (identified at beginning of bullet at "SMW comments").
Full citation: Schroeder, David A. and Graziano, William G. "The Field of Prosocial Behavior: An Introduction and Overview." The Oxford Handbook of Prosocial Behavior, edited by David A. Schroeder and William G. Graziano, Oxford University Press, 2015. Have a suggestion for my reading list? Email it to me at susie (at) wilkeningconsulting (dot) com. ![]() Why I picked it up: My work has helped me understand how vital curiosity is to individual life outcomes, from the practical (employment, etc.) to the prosocial (tolerance, inclusive, understanding). Curiosity is also something that museums, as well as other sources of informal learning, are good at sparking and cultivating. Study after study shows that visiting museums tends to be an "inherited" trait, with parents who visit museums tending to raise children who are also museum-goers. But is curiosity also "inherited?" We know that a curious childhood tends to lead to a curious adulthood, but public schooling doesn't always nurture curiosity. When that desire to learn is missing, learning is far more difficult. Additionally, curiosity is an expensive, resource-intensive thing to cultivate. How can we raise new generations of curious children if curiosity isn't actually nurtured for many (most?) children? This book examines the origins of curiosity in childhood, and I want to see where I find agreement as well as new ideas to consider and test. What you need to know:
My issue with the book: While I felt this was a solid introduction to curiosity in children, there was one big issue I had with it: there was no mention that curiosity isn't equitable. Engel didn't go into the social justice issues of curiosity at all, but falls into a common, but incorrect, assumption that curiosity is free and risk-free. It isn't. It takes a ton of resources to cultivate curiosity, and those resources (financial, time, energy, know-how, etc.) are not necessarily available in all, or even most, households. How do we, as a society, truly make curiosity free and accessible? Additionally, what happens when curiosity is misunderstood, shut down, or even punished, making it too risky to express? I've come across some references that suggest the ways African American children sometimes express curiosity are often misinterpreted by white teachers as troublesome or distracting, and the curiosity is thus shut down (or even punished). We should also consider what happens if the pursuit of curiosity by a child (or adult) of color is perceived as threatening to whites (it shouldn't be, but we don't live in an ideal world). In these cases, we have a serious equity issue. (Note - the idea that curiosity is too risky for some children is a newer consideration I am just beginning to learn about and I need to do my own literature review on it. *Head slap moment.*) Bottom line, she didn't acknowledge that the pursuit of curiosity is a privilege of the haves. Read or skip? If you are looking for an intro book on curiosity in children, this is a good choice, and there was general agreement with previous research on curiosity. Otherwise, no need to pick up. I personally did not find new ideas to consider or test (though this does not take away from it being a good primer.) Full citation: Engel, Susan. The Hungry Mind: The Origins of Curiosity in Childhood. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2015. Have a suggestion for my reading list? Email it to me at susie (at) wilkeningconsulting (dot) com. ![]() Think of that old story about the blind men and the elephant. Each one of those blind men, when experiencing the elephant, is asking a different question based on his individual perspective. What is this broad thing? What is this ropy thing? It doesn't occur to the man feeling the ear that there might be another body part that is thicker. Thus, he seeks to answer the questions his experience brings forward … and then he answers them with the facts he gathers. Ditto the man feeling the broad side of the elephant. Each of the men apply that same intuitive epistemology, and none of them gather all the information they need. It begs the question why they didn't ask each other what they experienced so they could gather all the facts. Now, imagine this happening times X number of Americans … or Y number of humans. We all have different cultural backgrounds, lived experiences, and thus values that arise out of them. The questions I come up with as a liberal white female in America are inevitable going to be different than, say, Xi Jinping's questions. Is it any wonder that we all end up with different sets of facts that we then use to (at times) to disagree with one another? Why I picked it up: Last year, when the Mueller Report was released, I came across a new term: intuitive epistemology. It described how two different people could read the Mueller Report and come to two different fact-based conclusions, largely because they were asking different questions of it. Major light bulbs went off in my head. Because I was seeing the exact same tendency when it came to people's examination of the past. That is, those who want a more inclusive history were asking one set of questions about the past, while those who want a more traditional (and perhaps conservative) history were asking a totally different set of questions. And, of course, those two groups were then finding very different accounts of the past that, at times, conflicted. And then I started to see this in other parts of my work and daily life. Climate change. Vaccines. Immigration. Race. Gender. All topics that museums cover, and thus all topics ripe for conflict in our exhibitions and programs. I needed to know more, so I went to the source of intuitive epistemology, and dug in. What you need to know: There are two big concepts, and two big things to understand Concept 1: Intuitive Epistemology. Epistemology is the process and study of establishing facts, but intuitive epistemology acknowledges how individual values and life experiences deeply affect the questions individuals ask of a subject, and thus the answers (facts) they find. That is, when I, as a human, approach a subject, my values around that subject affect my approach, what I choose to accept as valid information on that subject (and what I ignore and/or reject), and how I make sense of it. And this often leads to … Concept 2: Dueling Fact Perceptions. As individuals approach a subject from their own value-laden lens, they find the facts that tend to support their already-formed values. Since two people thus approach the same subject in different ways, and find different facts, those facts can lead to conflicting conclusions, or dueling fact perceptions. (Think elephant ear and elephant body … if all you know is the ear, the facts you know about elephants will conflict my facts about the body.) Which leads us to two big things to understand. Understanding #1 - We all practice intuitive epistemology. It is human nature. Conservatives and liberals do it. Those who are deeply religious do it as well as atheists. Scientists do it (valuing the scientific method is, of course, a value). We. All. Do. It. Understanding #2 - Since we all do it, finding middle ground is practically impossible. There is no neutral. And because it is entrenched, it is exceedingly difficult to practice radical curiosity and courageous empathy to understand how others might come to their (opposite/different) conclusions. Implications for museums: Museum-goers are coming to museums with different sets of values … and that affects how they engage with the content museums share. It also affects how open they might be to hearing information that conflicts with their world view (answer: not as open as we might like). That's why understanding peoples values, attitudes, and beliefs is so crucial when it comes to discussing big issues that matter. Such as inclusion and DEAI. Climate change. COVID-19 (and especially wearing masks). Vaccines. By understanding how they are approaching the subject, we can work to reframe questions with visitors that may allow new information to be considered thoughtfully. Because making that incremental shift in thinking matters. (And the results from the 2020 Annual Survey of Museum-Goers will look at this carefully … as well as how museum professionals approach content from different value sets than many of our visitors.) Read or skip? It took me, a motivated reader, 6 months to get through this book. Granted, I was a little busy … but still. That being said, there is a lot more in the book of value. If you want my running (and unpolished) notes on the subject, email me at susie (at) wilkeningconsulting (dot) com and I'll send them along. Full citation: Marietta, Morgan, and Barker, David C. One Nation, Two Realities: Dueling Facts in American Democracy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019 Have a suggestion for my reading list? Email it to me at susie (at) wilkeningconsulting (dot) com I am a hyper-curious person, and curiosity is an important value in my life … as well as an important impact of museums. But curiosity isn't limited to museums, and can be hard to sustain through adulthood. By sharing some of my curious paths through reading, I'm hoping to reinforce how important wide-ranging curiosity is to our practice and spark new conversations that may seem unrelated to museums, but deeply matter to how we do our work. After all, as museums we cover a variety of topics. Our curiosity should also be as omnivorous! To that end, here's a new installment of some of my wide-ranging reads (mostly non-fiction) I hope to hear recommendations from you! Book Love, by Debbie Tung
Books. They are stacked all over my house. I read several at a time. My daughter has every indication of taking after me. And cartoonist Debbie Tung is our kindred spirit. This graphic book beautifully captures what it means to love books … and tea … and the smell of books … Bookworm: A Memoir of Childhood Reading, by Lucy Mangan I was totally a bookworm as a kid (and still am). This memoir reminded me how intoxicating reading is to children … and cracked me up about the travails of being a bookish kid … because I totally related. If you read a lot as a kid, you'll find memories here as well as new books to discover. Finding Wonders: Three Girls Who Changed Science, by Jeannine Atkins I picked this up for my daughter, but loved it for me. Three beautiful, long-form poems celebrating three girls who truly looked … at butterflies (Maria Merian), fossils (Mary Anning), and the heavens (Maria Mitchell). It is an evocative mixture of poetry, history, science, and girl-power … and three resilient girls who I hope will inspire my daughter. Have a suggestion for my reading list? Email it to me at susie (at) wilkeningconsulting (dot) com. |
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I respectfully acknowledge that I live and work on the traditional lands of the Duwamish people. I thank them for the care of this land, and I endeavor to help museums bring forward a more complete and inclusive history and culture in their work.