Muzams

We have recently been discussing the significance of museums in English class and how they impact us and our perceptions of humanity. During our discussions, one of my classmates (who will go unnamed) refuses to pronounce the word "museum" correctly. He pronounces it "muzams." Whenever he refers to MUSEUMS, I find that not only do I want to inflict minor physical pain upon him, but the idea of museums takes on a very negative connotation, which brings me to the actual purpose of this blog: to discuss how the manner in which we describe museums impacts our perceptions and actual experience with them.

In our society, we describe museums in many different ways. Stephen E. Weil notes the particular metaphors we use to describe museums in his book, A Cabinet of Curiosities: Inquiries into Museums and Their Prospects. Common metaphors portray museums as temples, schools, laboratories, forums or even mausoleums. Each of these metaphors suggests certain things about a museum and affects the way we experience the museum as well. For example, Weil discusses how a museum that is thought of or described as a temple generally warrants reverent visitors and houses objects regarded as sacred. On the contrary, the objects on display in a museum that is seen as a school are there to educate, not simply to be admired. People who visit a museum like this will be expecting to learn during their time there and will act very different from people visiting a museum viewed as temple. These metaphors do not only vary from museum to museum, but from person to person as well. How a visitor acts and how they experiece a museum is very much a consequence of how they view/describe the museum.
To give this idea some context, look at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Depending on the visitor, the Field Museum can be viewed many different ways. Looking at the current exhibits, if a visitor is planning on visiting the Inside Ancient Egypt and the Ancient Americas exhibit, they might be more likely to revere the artifacts there, viewing the museum as a temple. However, a visitor that is excited to see the exhibits on climate change or natural disasters might be hoping to learn something about the modern world and would treat the museum as more of a school. The Field Museum could also be considered a laboratory. According to the museum website, it is "an international leader [of research in] evolutionary biology and paleontology, and archaeology and ethnography."

My personal experience with the Field Museum is largely composed of class field trips. Thus, the idea of the museum as a school is the metaphor I am particularly familiar with. However, in order for me and my classmates to really benefit from the museum, it had to be entertaining as well. There are definitely aspects of the Field Museum (perhaps even more so with the Museum of Science and Industry) that try to make the experience fun and exciting. For example, there's a new exhibit dedicated to chocolate. For children in particular, there is the Crown Family PlayLab for "your child's explorations and creative play." In this way, the museum is trying not only to be regarded as a school, but as a cool/interesting/fun place to go as well. Here we can see that even the museums themselves recognize the significance of our perceptions, which are the result of the language we use to describe museums.