Reading Museums: Translation, Spaces and Cognition - Workshop

This workshop is free to attend, however registration is essential.
Please register with Ning Zhu (ning.zhu@durham.ac.uk) by 28 November 2023.  
Full details are below.

Organisers:
Professor Binghan Zheng, MLAC, Durham University
Professor Tong King Lee, IAS Fellow at Durham University, University of Hong Kong 

Aims and scopes:
Museums are key institutions for the preservation of natural and cultural heritage as well as the 
production of historical narratives. Rather than neutral spaces for the objective display of artefacts in 
linear chronologies, they are multimodal sites which can be differentially traversed, viewed, listened 
to, read, interpreted, and even virtualised. Just as discursive texts are shaped by the disposition of their  writers, the curation of museums is invariably underpinned by ideologies which govern their spatial  and temporal design. From a reception point of view, they are also spaces of consumption which can  be turned into different places through the intervention of various actors and institutions.

Organised by the School of Modern Languages and Cultures and supported by the Institute of 
Advanced Study at Durham University, this symposium advances the idea of “reading museums” 
from the perspectives of translation, multimodality and cognition. It aims to draw together scholars
and practitioners with various backgrounds to build a multifaceted understanding of the museum as
places for learning, as perceptual events to be cognized, as texts to be translated, as symbolic 
institutions partaking of memory making or nation building, and as material products operating within  the global market economy. Comprising a series of seminars and a roundtable discussion, the 
symposium seeks to revisit existing theories and explore new directions at the intersection of museum  studies, multimodal semiotics, translation studies, and cognitive linguistics.

Location: Arthur Holmes Lecture Theatre (CG91), Chemistry Building

Agenda:

• 1200-1250: Arrival and buffet lunch, Scarborough Café at the Chemistry Building
  
  
• 1250-1255: Welcome remarks by Professor David Cowling, Head of School of MLAC
  
  
• 1255-1300: Opening speech by Professor Gretchen Larsen, Co-Director of IAS
  
  
• 1300-1400: Keynote speech: Exhibiting translations (and translating exhibitions)
  Professor Matthew Reynolds, University of Oxford
  
  
• 1400-1430: Translation as an affective practice in museums
  Associate Professor Min-Hsiu Liao, Heriot-Watt University
  
  
• 1430-1500: Investigating technologies to enrich museum audio description for enhancing accessibility
  Dr Xi Wang, Bristol University
  
  
• 1500-1530: Tea/coffee break
  
  
• 1530-1600: Virtual Museums: Digital technology and the commodification of heritage
  Professor Tong King Lee, University of Hong Kong
  
  
• 1600-1630: Reading translations in museums with eye-tracking: A cognitive perspective
  Professor Binghan Zheng, Durham University
  
  
• 1630-1730: Roundtable discussion
  This session is intended to extend discussions around the workshop theme ‘Reading Museums’
  from multiple perspectives and gather ideas on future directions for collaboration and
  publication. A tentative, non-exhaustive list of topics for discussion is as follows:
  
  - The semiotic management of museum spaces and its impact on the museum experience
  - Cognitive dimensions of the museum experience
  - Museums and digital technology
  - Museums and national narratives
  - Vernacular versus institutionalised museums
  - Multilingualism and multimodality in museum settings
  - Museums as sites of intersection between anthropology and translation
  - Alternative museum experience

The workshop is free for participation, but registration is required. Please register with
Miss Ning Zhu (ning.zhu@durham.ac.uk) by 28 November 2023.