Module: HIS6112-20 The Past as Professional Practice - Museums, Heritage & Archaeology

Level: 6

Credit Value: 20

Module Tutor: Sarah Morton

Module Tutor Contact Details: s.morton@bathspa.ac.uk

1. Brief description and aims of module:

This module provides a flexible framework in which you can develop skills in different forms of professional practice in the museums and heritage sector. Students may focus on a single aspect of this, or explore a range of different ones. Possible topics may include:

Collections management and conservation

Heritage learning and interpretation

Fundraising

Audience development

Community building and engagement

Planning, archaeology and the built environment

International heritage protection

The University has its own collections and archives, which we use as a basis for practical work. We also maintain partnerships with museums and heritage organisations across the City of Bath and beyond. This is an opportunity to contribute to an existing project, including through a short optional placement, devise and develop your own, and to reflect on the issues and challenges inherent in all forms of heritage practice. Throughout, we’ll ask you to apply your understanding of ethical thinking, debates about representation and ownership, the political role of museums and heritage, and of the production of the past more generally, to the work you do - to set it in this much broader, more complicated context.

This module has been especially designed for students who would like a future career in the heritage sector but it has wider relevance and application than that. It will contribute to your development as a skillful communicator, to your ability to marshal evidence and appraise options, to your experience of developing and managing projects, and to your understanding of the past as a basis for contention and reconciliation, as well as its contribution to learning, wellbeing or the economy.

2. Outline syllabus:

The module is flexible, and aspects of it can be tailored to your interests and aspirations. It includes a common introduction, and then allows for greater specialisation as the module progresses. If you intend to incorporate a placement element, planning for this will take place prior to the start of the module so that arrangements with the host organisation can be made. 

1. Professional practice in museums and heritage in the 21st century: debates, disciplines and development

2. Partners, stakeholders and networks

3. Developing professional skills in

• Collections management and conservation

• The environment & built heritage

• Engagement, learning and interpretation

• Fundraising and advocacy

• Heritage, health and wellbeing 

• Politics and practice

• Value, significance & impact 

4. Project design, planning and evaluation

5. Placement planning (where relevant)

3. Teaching and learning activities:

Following a short series of shared introductory seminars, the module is delivered through small group and individual project work, supported by one of the team. There are further shared sessions towards the end of the module to support the creation of the portfolio and setting out next steps.

Assessment Item 1:

• Assessment Type: CW

• Description: Practise Portfolio, including context paper and reflective commentary

• % Weighting: 100%