The Museum of Methodology and the Criminalization of Culture, Rio c. 1938

February 27, 2018 HRi 0 Comments

 

Museu, reprodução, Boletim Policial:  Image provided by Amy Buono

 

The Museum of Methodology and the Criminalization of Culture, Rio c. 1938

A Public Lecture and Round Table Featuring Amy Buono,

University of California, Santa Barbara

Monday, March 12 at 5:00 p.m., Luther College 207

Abstract:

The Civil Police Museum of Rio de Janeiro, established within the Police Academy in 1912, went by many names: it was also known as the “Museum of Crime” and, tellingly, the “Museum of Methodology.” This lecture examines the museum, its collections, and the role of objects and visual culture in building a civic culture that linked collecting and seeing with police training. By 1938, the Civil Police Museum became Brazil’s earliest institutional collection of Afro-Brazilian heritage, one eventually under the domain of IPHAN. This talk explores the contradictory ways a particular collection within a collection, the inner “Museum of Black Magic,” was understood and preserved in the period, highlighting how police violence and museum preservation are intertwined.

Biography:

Amy Buono is a Visiting Assistant Professor in the Department of History of Art and Architecture at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and affiliated as a Researcher at the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. Her scholarship centers on materiality, memory, and museums, with a special focus on Brazil and the Atlantic world. Amy Buono is the author of the forthcoming book Tupinambá Feathercraft in the Brazilian Atlantic (University of Pennsylvania Press). Her current book project centers on race, pedagogy, and the visuality of crime in the Civil Police Museum of Rio de Janeiro.

All members of the University of Regina Community and the interested public are welcome to attend.

The Museum of Methodology and the Criminalization of Culture, Rio c. 1938 was last modified: March 3rd, 2018 by HRi