The Museum in Ethnography: Teaching Museology Within Anthropology and Ethnology

Abstract

The text is assembled based on an Internet search regarding the contemporary reception of museum-related issues in the field of ethnography/ethnology/anthropology. By drawing comparisons between Polish and foreign academic anthropological centres, I aim to illustrate whether or how this subject is integrated into academic curricula, what trends are emerging, what seems relevant, and which issues are receiving attention. Unfortunately, in Polish anthropology (at the Universities of Warsaw, Wrocław, Poznań, Łódź, and Toruń), there is a tendency to diminish the role of museology in teaching the discipline. The situation is only different at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. In the text, I juxtapose Polish courses related to museology within ethnology and anthropology programmes with various anthropology departments at leading universities worldwide (Columbia University, Cambridge University, Yale University, Oxford, and Københavns Universitet).