Articles on Museums, Exhibitions, and Public Scholarship
A "Museum Frictions" editorial meeting in progress, 2002.
Ivan Karp became Curator of African Ethnology at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History in 1984, and soon turned his anthropological attention to museums as institutions and fields of social interaction, and to exhibitions as contested forms of representation and cultural production. Working with Steven D. Lavine (then of the Rockefeller Foundation) in the late 1980s, he co-organized two major interdisciplinary conferences about museums and exhibitions that brought together academic scholars and museum professionals. The resulting volumes, Exhibiting Cultures and Museums and Communities, helped redefine the field.
Ten years later, working with Corinne A. Kratz and colleagues at Rockefeller, a new series of workshops and conferences focused on museums and globalization and produced the third major volume, Museum Frictions. Karp wrote many other articles on museums and exhibitions and in the early 1990s began a collaborative project with Kratz to examine how cultural difference is represented in display settings ranging from museum exhibitions, to resort hotels, to Walt Disney World.
Through his work in and on museums, Karp developed the broader notion of public scholarship and founded the Center for the Study of Public Scholarship (CSPS) in 1994, soon after he moved to Emory University. He and Kratz co-directed CSPS from 2000-2009.
* All downloadable papers are used here with permission. Please do not recirculate them, but feel free to direct others to this website.
2010s
2015 The Interrogative Museum. In Museum as Process: Translating Local and Global Knowledges. Edited by Raymond Silverman. NY: Routledge. With Corinne Kratz.
2014 Collecting, Exhibiting, and Interpreting: Museums as Midwives and Mediators of Meaning. Special issue of papers from the symposium "Collecting Contemporary Urban Materials for the Museum Visitor of the 22nd Century." Museum Anthropology 37(1):51-65. With Corinne Kratz
2012 Public Scholarship as a Vocation. Arts and Humanities in Higher Education 11(3): 285-299.
2000s
2006 Museum Frictions: A Project History. In Museum Frictions: Public Cultures/Global Transformations. Edited by Ivan Karp, Corinne Kratz, Lynn Szwaja, Tomás Ybarra-Frausto et al. Durham NC: Duke University Press. With Corinne Kratz.
2006 Museum Frictions: Introduction. In Museum Frictions: Public Cultures/Global Transformations. Edited by Ivan Karp, Corinne Kratz, Lynn Szwaja, Tomás Ybarra-Frausto et al. Durham NC: Duke University Press. With Corinne Kratz.
2006 Tactical Museologies. In Museum Frictions: Public Cultures/Global Transformations. Edited by Ivan Karp, Corinne Kratz, Lynn Szwaja, Tomás Ybarra-Frausto et al. Durham NC: Duke University Press. With Gustavo Buntinx.
2006 Constructing the Spectacle of Culture in Museums. Reprinted in Il Nuovo Museo. Origine e Percorsi, Vol. 2, ed. by Cecilia Ribaldi. Milano: Il Saggiatore.
2005 Real Objects, Simulated Experiences and Cultural Differences. Reprinted in Il Nuovo Museo. Origine e Percorsi, Vol. 1, ed. by Cecilia Ribaldi. Milano: Il Saggiatore.
2002 Real Objects, Simulated Contexts: On the Dilemma of Exhibiting Other Cultures. In Musei, saperi culture. Atti del Convegno Internazionale, Maggio - Ottobre, 1999. Milan: ICOM Italy. pp. 23-42.
2001 Real Objects, Simulated Experiences and Cultural Differences: Paradox and Tensions in the Making of Exhibits. South African Museums Association Bulletin 25(2):67-75.
2000a Reflections in the Fate of Tippoo's Tiger: Defining Cultures through Public Display. In E. Hallam and B. Street, eds., Cultural Encounters: Communicating Otherness. London: Routledge. pp. 194-229. With Corinne Kratz.
2000b Public Scholarship as a Vocation. In Proceedings of the Museums New Zealand 1996 Conference.
1990s
1997a Exhibiting Otherness: Problems and Prospects. Communicating Cultures: Proceedings of the Museums Australia 1995 National Conference. Queensland: Museums Australia, Inc. pp. 40-46.
1997b How Museums Define Other Cultures. In Aesthetics, ed. By Susan Feagin and Patrick Maynard. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
1996 Constructing the Spectacle of Culture in Museums. In Thinking About Exhibitions, edited by Bruce Ferguson, Reesa Greenberg, and Sandy Nairne. London: Routledge. With Fred Wilson. Revised version of 1993b.
1993a Wonder and Worth: Disney Museums in World Showcase. Museum Anthropology (October 1993) 17(3): 32-42. With Corinne A. Kratz.
1993b Constructing the Spectacle of Culture in Museums. Art Papers: Art in context 17(3): 2-9. With Fred Wilson.
1993c Museums Must Take on New Roles in This Multicultural Society. Point-of-view column for The Chronicle of Higher Education XXXIX (32) (4/14/93): B3, B6. With Steven D. Lavine.
1993d Communities and Museums. Museum News (May/June): 44-50. Reprinted in Museums: Ideas and Issues, ed. by Gerard Corsane. London: Routledge. With Steven D. Lavine.
1993e First Word. African Arts. XXVI (3): 1-12.
1992a Introduction: Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture. In Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture, edited by Ivan Karp, Christine Mullen Kreamer, and Steven D. Lavine, pp. 1-17. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
1992b On Civil Society and Social Identity. In Museums and Communities: The Politics of Public Culture, edited by Ivan Karp, Christine Mullen Kreamer and Steven D. Lavine, pp. 19-33. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
1991a Introduction: Museums and Multiculturalism. In Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, edited by Ivan Karp and Steven D. Lavine, pp. 1-11. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press. With Steven D. Lavine.
1991b Culture and Representation. In Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, edited by Ivan Karp and Steven D. Lavine, pp. 11-25. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
1991c Festivals. In Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, edited by Ivan Karp and Steven D. Lavine, pp. 278-287. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
1991d Other Cultures in Museum Perspective. In Exhibiting Cultures: The Poetics and Politics of Museum Display, edited by Ivan Karp and Steven D. Lavine, pp. 373-385. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.
1991e How Museums Define Other Cultures. [A revised and expanded version of 1991d]. American Art (Winter/Spring 1991) 5(1-2): 1-15.
1991f High and Low Revisited. American Art (Summer 1991) 5(3): 2-7.
1991g Review Essay of Exhibition and Catalogue: African Reflections: Art from Northeastern Zaire, by Enid Schildkrout and Curtis A. Keim. Seattle and New York: University of Washington Press, 1990. American Anthropologist 93(2): 523-525.
1980s
1987 Ivan Karp: Interview and Comments on Objects. In Perspectives: Angles on African Art, by James Baldwin, et al; Introduction by Susan Vogel, pp. 81-95. New York: The Center for African Art.