The Object of This Exercise: About the Many Meanings of Objects

“What is the Object of This Exercise” was written for the Museum Edition of Daedalus (*”What is the Object of this Exercise? A Meandering Exploration of the Many Meanings of Objects in Museums,” Daedalus, summer 1999, volume 128, number 3, pp. 163-183.)  It was also published in Australia in the Humanities Research Journal Vol VIII, No. 1, 2001 in Australia.  That edition of the article appears on-line and is downloadable.  This article is used in many museum studies curiculum and so having it on-line is especially pleasing to me. The link is attached just below this paragraph.  The same article also appears in Civilizing the Museum: the Collected Writings of Elaine Heumann Gurian.