This webinar will be a lively conversation between author Robert Janes, Marsha Semmel, and Avi Decter focusing on Janes’ just-published volume, Museums and Societal Collapse: The Museum as Lifeboat (Routledge, 2023), which argues that humankind is on the brink of societal collapse and that museums, irrespective of their disciplinary focus, need to help our society bridge the divide between nature and culture.
Janes, based in Calgary, Alberta, has written several books on museums, including Museums and the Paradox of Change (3rd ed. 2013) and Museums in a Troubled World (2009). His latest volume synthesizes his previous work in a broad critique of contemporary society and ideas and provocations about the role that museums can play as key civic resources. Bob believes that “museums are civic and intellectual resources that are accountable to both the human and non-human worlds”. He posits that museums have a “unique role and potential in stewarding a more intelligent, altruistic, and conscious future for themselves and their communities.”
Marsha Semmel and Avi Decter are two of the co-editors of the wide-ranging 2022 anthology Change Is Required: Preparing for the Post-Pandemic Museum.
