The Museum in the Global Contemporary: Debating the Museum of Now, University of Leicester School of Museum Studies Fiftieth Anniversary Conference, 18-22 April 2016

The School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester opened in 1966. So, from 18 to 22 April 2016, museum colleagues from around the world gathered for a fiftieth birthday celebration. There were two days of preconference trips—one to Yorkshire Sculpture Park on 18 April, and then, on 19 April, one to Stratford and one remaining in Leicester. On the evening of 19 April, there was an Open Studio Event at Haley Sharpe—a globally leading design agency based in Leicester’s very own Guildhall Lane.

The conference proper began on 20 April. Th e Museum in the Global Contemporary: Debating the Museum of Now aimed to emphasize global dialogues, cultural specificity, and the need for museums to focus on their present, particular contexts. Th is is a broad-ranging and ambitious remit, and some parts of the conference were more successful at playing to it than others. Expansive themes such as this are inclusive and allow freedom of interpretation; but they can also produce an inconclusive, scatter-shot event. Even here, some elements were more successful and directly responsive to the theme than others.