Curiosity Collection Part 1: Compiling the Collection

In Unit 3, you read about “Curiosity Collections” which were, in fact, the earliest museums. In this assignment we are going to create a virtual “curiosity collection” by submitting “artifacts” (images) to the Curiosity Collection Discussion Board. Imagine that we, as a class, are creating a “Liberal Studies Museum.” The purpose of this collection is to educate others about the meaning and/or value of a liberal education. In short, our task is to help the public become interested in “new ways of seeing.” The museum curator has asked that we consider the following questions when deciding what objects to submit to the collection:

How would you describe your experiences as a liberal studies student?
What about being a liberal studies student is particularly meaningful to you?
What type of physical object might effectively translate your experience as a liberal studies student into a sensory experience that can help others understand what it means to pursue a broad education.

Keep in mind the range of what we have covered thus far in this course (educational history, disciplinary history, qualitative and quantitative analysis, 20th century literary/linguistic/philosophical theory, etc.) How would you contextualize the object to give it meaning for those unfamiliar with this type of education?

Part 1: Compiling the Collection–Due SATURDAY

Every person in the class is responsible for contributing ONE object to our virtual museum using the Curiosity Collection discussion board. When choosing an object to contribute, keep the following in mind:

Think about the terms of this assignment as described above.

Make sure that someone else hasn’t already used your idea since there shouldn’t be two of the same object in the collection (that does not mean that we can’t have more than one painting or song or sculpture or photo–we just can’t have the same picture, song etc.)

Your chosen object can be anything tasteful and appropriate that you can imagine being displayed in a museum: a piece of art, a form of technology, a sound recording, or something you created yourself.

Using the answers to your questions above, you will post an image of your contribution (either from a picture you found on the internet or one you took yourself) and 2-4 sentences to describe and contextualize your choice. In other words, how does the item relate to or reflect Liberal Studies? (20 points)

How to get started:

First visit the “Curiosity Museum Collection” discussion board and see what is already in the collection.
Decide what you would like to contribute and find a good image on the internet (or take your own picture).
Post the image to the discussion board. Include 2-4 sentences to describe and contextualize how your image relates to or reflects Liberal Studies along with the image itself AND give your contribution a title (the subject line) before submitting it for all to see.