Collecting Power: Museums, Colonialism, and Restitution
UndergraduateLTU-ART20022025
Course information for 2025 intake View information for 2024 course intake
Enrol today with instant approval and no entry requirements
- Study method
- 100% online
- Assessments
- 100% online
- Enrol by
- 20 July 2025
- Entry requirements
- No ATAR needed, No prior study
- Duration
- 12 weeks
- Price from
- $2,124
- Upfront cost
- $0
- Loan available
- HECS-HELP and FEE-HELP available
Collecting Power: Museums, Colonialism, and Restitution
About this subject
On successful completion you will be able to:
- Gain an understanding of the role that collecting art and visual culture plays in broad political and historical developments.
- Develop and strengthen understanding and engagement with ethical debates that apply to collecting, ownership and censorship within historical and contemporary arts contexts.
- Expand skills in research, critical and reflective thinking, and writing by evaluating key ideas and concepts.
- Museums
- Cultural Heritage and Colonisation
- The Elgin Marbles
- Nazi Looting
- Destruction of Cultural Heritage
- Restitution and Reparation
- First Nations' Advocacy and the Museum
- Contemporary art and Decolonisation
Museums are widely considered the custodians of what our cultures deem most valuable. Yet what is collected, and how, tells us a great deal about the ongoing violence of colonialism. In this subject, you explore the relationship between collecting, conflict and power, and how the role of art in conquest, nation-building and religious conflicts can lead to its destruction or censorship. You will consider several case studies drawn from a Western context, such as the Elgin marbles, Nazi looting and terrorist destruction of cultural heritage, and explore the wider ethical and legal context of collecting, destruction and theft. You will also explore broad cultural responses to redressing this legacy in ‘decolonising’ actions that include the restitution and repatriation of cultural objects and the transformation of institutional practices in response to First Nations advocacy. You will be introduced to the ethical, moral and legal issues involved in the circulation of art around the world to facilitate the development of your global and cross-cultural thinking.
You will participate in weekly seminars to develop your own perspective and point of view, in addition to engaging with a range of learning activities.
- Textual analysis (400 words equivalent) (10%)
- Case Study 1 (800 words equivalent) (20%)
- Case study 2: written report (1200 words equivalent) (30%)
- Research essay: (2000 words) (40%)
For textbook details check your university's handbook, website or learning management system (LMS).
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- QS Ranking 2024:
- 17
- Times Higher Education Ranking 2024:
- 18
Entry requirements
No entry requirements
Equivalent subjects
You should not enrol in this subject if you have successfully completed any of the following subject(s) because they are considered academically equivalent:
LTU-ARH2LIC (Not currently available)
Study load
- 0.125 EFTSL
- This is in the range of 10 to 12 hours of study each week.
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What to study next?
Once you’ve completed this subject it can be credited towards one of the following courses
Bachelor of Arts/Bachelor of Health Sciences
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