arts and society directorTiffany Jenkins
Tiffany Jenkins is director of the arts and society programme at the Institute of Ideas. She hosts conferences, salons, broadcasts and writes about cultural matters. Tiffany is currently researching the crisis of cultural authority in museum institutions, and the cultural work of dead bodies, in the school of social sciences, at the University of Kent at Canterbury. She is interested in the legitimacy of museum insitutions, cultural policy, the body as a site of identity, and the symbolic meanings of dead bodies.
Recent articles
Selected papers and presentations
- 11 June 2008. Tiffany Jenkins will present 'The Corpse in Contemporary Art', exploring the role of the corpse and body parts in the work of Lucy Skaer, Christine Borland, and Teresa Margolles at the Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh
- 30 March 2008. "'He most certainly is not a museum object': The emerging cultural meanings of human remains to British museum professionals" at British Sociological Association Annual Conference
- 14 March 2008. What Remains: The life and death of skulls in contemporary art at The Fruitmarket Gallery, Edinburgh
- 7 February 2008. "'He most certainly is not a museum object': The emerging cultural meanings of human remains to British museum professionals" at University of Edinburgh research seminar
- 25 January 2008. 'Exploring the question of agency through the discourse of respect: How museum professionals relate to human remains' at the University of Edinburgh research group: 'What Lies Beneath: Exploring the affective presence & emotive materiality of human bones.'
- 14-16 December 2007. Tiffany Jenkins will be speaking on the panel 'When Data Are Human: Repatriation, Physical Anthropology, and the Intersection of Science and Belief' at the Theoretical Archaeology Group annual conference.
- 12-15 September 2007. Tiffany Jenkins presented the paper, 'Contesting dead bodies in museums: The emerging cultural meanings of human remains' at the 8th International Conference on the Social Context of Death, Dying and Disposal at the University of Bath.
- 24 July 2007. Tiffany chaired an In Transit debate at Westbourne Studios, 'Debatable! The role of the arts in public space'.
- 21 May 2007. Tiffany chaired the debate 'Slaves to the Past' at Tate Britain, as part of Museums and Galleries Month
- 08 December 2006. Tiffany chaired the debate, Reparation, Restitution and Reparations at the British Academy.
- 26 February 2006. Tiffany spoke at a symposium on Religion Matters: Art, Piety, Destruction, and the Politics of Display at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachussetts
- 21 May 2008. Thrills from arts TV, Culture Wars
- 12 April 2008. Doctor is an example of arts malady The Herald
- 27 February 2008. Why museums should dump the ‘Disposal Toolkit’ spiked
- (2008) Dead bodies: The changing treatment of human remains in British museum collections and the challenge to the traditional model of the museum, Mortality (13) 2.
- (2008) Review of Human Remains Dissection and its Histories by Helen Macdonald. Mortality.
- November 2007. Interview on Australian ABC radio on museums.
- 2 October 2007. Give art a sporting chance spiked
- 17 May 2007. The ‘disorganised apartheid’ of cultural diversity spiked review of books
- 14 May 2007. Tiffany was on Claire Fox News on 18 Doughty Street discussing several arts, including the Museums and Galleries Month debate on slavery and museums.
- 7 March 2007. Why censorship in place of free thinking at our universities? The Scotsman
- 28 February 2007. Why should artists be agents for the government? The Independent. The article was also reproduced at http://kadmusarts.com/blog/
- 24 January 2007. The grown-ups who log on to virtual life and flee the world The Scotsman
- (2006) The question of sacred items and their censure in museums in Nuances number 36-37, 2006. News letter of the Association for the Respect of the Integrity of Artistic Heritage (France)
- October 2006. Passion and Possession: a museum polemic. Material Religion, vol. 2, issue 3. The Journal of Objects, Art and Belief
- 21 October 2006. Keep out of politics. The Spectator
- 11 October 2005. Tiffany appeared on More4 News discussing a proposed crackdown on suicide websites.
- (2004) Human Remains: Objects to study or ancestors to bury? Occasional Paper. London: Institute of Ideas
- (2003) 'Dead Heads: Medical and Artistic Attitudes Towards the Dead Body'. in Kaplan, J. (Ed.), Exhumed at the Museum of Garden History. London: Parabola Press: 14-16.
- (2002) Editor, Alternative Medicine: Should We Swallow It? London: Hodder & Stoughton
- (2002) Editor, Ethical Tourism: Who Benefits? London: Hodder & Stoughton
- (2002) Editor with Lee, E. Teenage Sex: What should schools teach children? London: Hodder & Stoughton
Selected press and publications
Tiffany's blog, which details her writing, broadcasting and events can be read here http://www.tiffanyjenkins.blogspot.com/
