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Universidade Federal do Estado do Rio de Janeiro – UNIRIO

Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, October 13-16, 2015

 

CALL FOR PAPERS

Submission of full papers for presentation: August 23, 2015

Submission of the final versions for the approved papers: October 1, 2015

 

 

Theme: Stránsky: a bridge Brno – Brazil

 

“Naturally it is a correct procedure for a discipline to, first of all things, put under suspicion the object that has been assigned to it by tradition.” Umberto Eco (1991).

 

The big collection of the “patermonium” of which something will be culturally transmitted and inherited includes all that is conceived as a product but also what is conceived as thinking. In an instance, we receive the theories; in another, we receive what is understood by the theoretical formulation. In 1965, Zbynek Zbyslav Stránský declares not to be the museum the subject of study of Museology. The Czech museologist, then, in his manifest, conceives the world that has been given to him and applies what Umberto Eco has stated in the fragment above: the natural character of disciplines that rethink their classical subjects of study.

 

It has been long since 1965 and yet, in present days, it is still preponderant to speak on the Museum in the discussions of Museology…

 

When it was possible to enunciate Stránský’s ideas on Museology in a systematic and vast perspective beyond the Iron Curtain, in the end of the 1970s, thanks to the creation of the newborn Committee for Museology of the International Council of Museums (ICOM), Museology is affirmed as a scientific discipline in comparison to the alternative of being only practical work. In general, the polarization of the field between Museology in continental Europe and Museum Studies in England and other Anglo-Saxon countries had in both sides the common denominator of the Museum. Furthermore, in the case of the continental tradition, which has spread more expressively throughout the world, the epistemological debates are most unanimously defined by the scientific approach. The alternatives in 1979 were, in fact, pragmatic or scientific. By tradition or even responding to the established Museum centrality in the productions of thinkers in this area, to speak of the Museum has always meant in a way to speak of Museology, even if we may speak of it critically, or deconstructing it as a social institution, considering a different notion of Museology.

 

Possibly in the second half of the 1970s, Stránský has defined the subject of Museology as Museality. This supposed subject of study has evolved to another one: the man-reality relation. A few decades later, this notion is further studied and to this man-reality relational subject it is added the character of value, already presented in Museality. Considering the wide range of interpretations of this object in comparison to the denied one, the Museum, Tomislav Sola, in 1982, accepting and assuming Museology’s subject of study accordingly to the Stranskian conception, justifies that such a subject would be more suitable to a wider discipline as in the proposed concept of Heritology.

 

The Czech thinker introduced a new way of thinking in which his other colleagues of the “Czech school” (of which he might have been a spokesman) are not excluded. This particular conception of Museology has become referential, particularly to Brazilian Museology, being admitted, refuted or altered by different thinkers over the years, and even universal beyond the Iron Curtain.

 

In the academic celebration of 50 years since Stránský’s declaration on Museology’s subject of study, the School of Museology of UNIRIO proposes to revisit the importance of the man who was considered the “father of scientific Museology” discussing the foundations of the field in present day theories and contributing to the international debates on its subject of study.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Papers and presentations should focus on one (or a mix) of the following topics:

 

1. Metamuseology: theoretical approaches on the museological thinking

 

2. Stránský’s conception as a reference in the History of Museology

 

3. The multiple perceptions of Museology’s subject of study considering the Stranskian formulation.

 

 

Guidelines for papers:

 

Papers must be submitted in electronic form, written in software compatible to MS Office (MS Word), in one of the following languages: English, Portuguese, French or Spanish. Texts must be saved as .doc or .docx. Papers should be sent by e-mail – in an attached file – to the address: ciclodedebates.museologia@gmail.com.

 

Papers should be no more than 45.000 characters (spaces included), including the main text, references, and one abstract (the other language abstract(s) can be added to the total number of characters). The abstracts should be between 150 to 200 words, and be written in both the lead language and at least one of the other three languages.

 

Foreign language words should be put in italics, followed by a translation or explanation in parentheses.

 

Peer evaluation will consider works related to research results or researches in progress connected to research lines in the field of the Theory of Museology, from the undergraduate level to PhD and post-doctorate researches. In the case of works derived from undergraduate projects or master and PhD investigations, the academic advisors must coauthor the papers.