Our research about the social and historic complexities about the human body in museum collections now continues as a graduate level course. Parkeology is co-leading Anthropology, Museums and the Body with National Museum of Natural History curator and anthropologist Gwyneira Isaac. Alongside George Washington University Anthropology and Museum Studies students, we are visiting collections and archives throughout the Smithsonian institution in order to understand the different scientific and social outlooks that have lead to housing duplicates and fragments of the body.
This course raises many deep-rooted issues of race, culture, genetics, gender and power structures, so we are drawing from the expertise from medical science curators, forensic scientists, artists, archivists, anthropologists and community members to approach this material. As an interdisciplinary course, students are responding to the research through creating both research papers and art projects.
