Joshua Goode is a Professor of History who has also managed a museum studies program and has worked internationally with museums to contemplate how they tell their stories and to whom.  He will lead an exercise in all of us becoming the Curator and Director of the Museum of Me, putting on a show about us.

Museums generally rely on objects to convey stories, ideas, knowledge, a sense of culture and belonging, and meaning.  Museums can tell collective stories of a people, a nation, a small group, a family, a time, and a place.  Museums are also meant to hold collections and tell their stories in perpetuity, to stand the test of time.  But they also have to think about the audience.  What do they know? How might they react?  Who is walking in the front door?  Who isn’t visiting?  So, in this hands-on activity driven evening, we are going to wear a lot of museum hats to talk about ourselves.  We are going to be curators, thinking about how we present ourselves through objects.  We are going to be museum directors who want to make sure their audiences are served by the exhibition.  And, we will be collections managers who want to know what objects are going to be used and make sure they don’t break!