SOAS University of London

Department of the History of Art and Archaeology, School of Arts

Louise Tythacott

  • Overview
  • Teaching
  • Research
  • Publications

Overview

Louise Tythacott
Department of History of Art and Archaeology, School of Arts

Pratapaditya Pal Senior Lecturer in Curating and Museology of Asian Art

School of Arts

Pratapaditya Pal Senior Lecturer in Curating and Museology of Asian Art

Centre of Buddhist Studies

Member, Centre of Buddhist Studies

SOAS China Institute

Academic Staff, SOAS China Institute

SOAS Centre of South East Asian Studies

Academic Staff, Centre of South East Asian Studies

The Southeast Asian Art Academic Programme

Project Board Member

Name:
Dr Louise Tythacott
Email address:
Telephone:
020 7898 4159
Address:
SOAS University of London
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG
Building:
Brunei Gallery
Office No:
B320
Office Hours:
Louise will be on Research Leave: term 1, 2017-18

Biography

Louise holds a degree in Social Anthropology with Southeast Asian Studies from the University of Kent at Canterbury. Her post-graduate research was based at the University of Hong Kong where she undertook fieldwork on Chinese folk deity imagery and temple iconography. She studied Chinese at the University of Westminster and holds a PhD from the University of Manchester.

Before arriving at SOAS, she was a Lecturer in Museology at the University of Manchester, and also a Curator of Asian Collections and Head of Ethnology for the National Museums Liverpool. She was the lead curator for the World Cultures gallery at Liverpool Museum, which opened in 2005, with specific responsibilities for the Asia and Buddhism displays. Louise has worked as the curator of a private Burmese textile collection, and as an Exhibitions Officer at The Royal Pavilion, Art Gallery & Museums, Brighton. She has also been a Managing Editor of the peer-reviewed journal, Museum and Society, and she continues to work on museum projects and curate exhibitions.

Teaching

Programmes Convened
Courses Taught
PhD Students supervised
  • Ayesha Fuentes, On the use of human remains in Tibetan ritual objects
  • Elizabeth Reid, An investigation into the meaning and significance of the exhibitions of Chinese art at the Whitechapel Art Gallery between 1901 and 1934
  • Heidi Tan, Curating the Sacred: Pagoda Museums in Myanmar
  • Helen Glaister, Collecting in Public and Private: The Ionides Collection of Chinese Export Porcelain, 1920-1970
  • Miranda Bruce-Mitford, From Natural History to Wayang: The Collections and Collecting Practices of Thomas Stamford Raffles
  • Stephanie Tredan, Stuck in Limbo: The Repatriation of Unprovenanced Australian Indigenous Ancestral Remains from UK and Australian Museums
Louise also contributes to the following courses:
  • Theory and Method in the Study of Asian and African Art
  • Research Skills Training Course
  • SOAS Diploma in Asian Arts Course
  • Curating Global Arts
Completed PhD students:
  • Hee Jung Lee. Exploring visual modernity and national identity in modern China: Fu Baoshi’s self-awareness and critical response during the Sino-Japanese war (1937-1945).(2015)
  • Maria Sklirou. The Issue of Access in Greek Museums. (2009)
  • Alan Arcadia.An Intimate Destruction: Desire, Death and the Self in Buddhism, Surrealism and Georges Bataille.(2009)
  • Emma Poulter. The West African Collections at Manchester Museum.(2008)

Research

Louise’s research focuses on the collecting and display of non-Western artefacts, and she has particular interests in the representation of Chinese and Buddhist material in museums. Her books include, Surrealism and the Exotic (Routledge, hb 2003; sb 2014), The Lives of Chinese Objects: Buddhism, Imperialism and Display (Berghahn, 2011) and Museums and Restitution: New Practices, New Approaches (ed with Kostas Arvanitis, Ashgate, 2014).

Louise's current research traces the trajectories of objects taken from the Yuanmingyuan (or old 'Summer Palace') to the north of Beijing, and explores the succession of meanings and values attributed to China’s imperial treasures over the past 150 years - their existence as commodities in London auction houses; their status as ‘trophies of war’ in regimental museums in the UK; and their lives in exhibitions and displays in the UK, France and China. In 2013, she organised a two–day international workshop on representations of the 'Summer Palace', which will be published as an edited volume by Routledge in 2017 - Collecting and Displaying China’s “Summer Palace” in the West: The Yuanmingyuan in Britain and France.

In 2016, with Christian Luczanits (PI), Louise was awarded an AHRC Research Grant of £438,000 for a 3 year project (2016-19) to investigate Tibetan Buddhist Monastery Collections and Museums in Nepal and Ladakh.

Publications

Jump to: Authored Books | Edited Books or Journal Volumes | Book Chapters | Articles | Book Reviews | Shows/Exhibitions

Authored Books

Tythacott, Louise (2011) The Lives of Chinese Objects: Buddhism, Imperialism and Display. Oxford and New York: Berghahn. (Museums and Collections)

Tythacott, Louise (2003) Surrealism and the Exotic. London: Routledge.

Edited Books or Journal Volumes

Tythacott, Louise, ed. (2017) Collecting and Displaying China's 'Summer Palace' in the West: The Yuanmingyuan in Britain and France. Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge. (Forthcoming)

Tythacott, Louise and Arvanitis, Kostas, eds. (2014) Museums and Restitution: New Practices, New Approaches. Farnham: Ashgate.

Book Chapters

Tythacott, Louise (2017) 'The Yuanmingyuan and its Objects.' In: Tythacott, Louise, (ed.), Collecting and Displaying China's 'Summer Palace' in the West: The Yuanmingyuan in Britain and France. Abingdon, Oxon; New York: Routledge, pp. 3-24. (Forthcoming)

Tythacott, Louise (2016) 'British travels in China during the Opium Wars (1839-1860): Shifting Images and Perceptions.' In: Hill, Kate, (ed.), Britain and the Narration of Travel in the Nineteenth Century: Texts, Images, Objects. Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 191-208.

Tythacott, Louise and Arvanitis, Kostas (2014) 'Introduction: Museums and Restitution.' In: Museums and Restitution: New Practices, New Approaches. Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 1-18.

Tythacott, Louise (2012) 'Classifying China: shifting interpretations of Buddhist bronzes in Liverpool Museum, 1867-1997.' In: Museums and Biographies: Stories, Objects, Identities. Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer , pp. 173-185.

Tythacott, Louise (2010) 'The Politics of Representation in Museums.' In: Encyclopedia of Library and Information Sciences. London : Taylor & Francis Group, pp. 4230-4241.

Tythacott, Louise (2001) 'From the ‘fetish’ to the ‘specimen’: the Ridyard African collection at the Liverpool Museum 1895-1916.' In: Collectors: expressions of self and other. London: Horniman Museum, pp. 157-179.

Tythacott, Louise (2000) 'Souvenirs of the travelling surrealists.' In: Hitchcock, Michael and Teague, Ken, (eds.), Souvenirs: the material culture of tourism. Farnham: Ashgate, pp. 72-77.

Tythacott, Louise (1995) 'The Theatre of the Incorporeal.' In: Benewick, Robert and Donald, Stephanie, (eds.), Belief in China: Art and Politics; Deities and Mortality. Brighton: Royal Pavilion, Art Gallery & Museums , pp. 19-27.

Tythacott, Louise (1995) 'Eastern Asia.' In: Kingfisher Book of Mythology. London: Larousse, pp. 100-125.

Tythacott, Louise (1995) 'Dance.' In: Dance. Hove: Wayland Publishers, pp. 1-48. (Traditions Around the World )

Tythacott, Louise (1995) 'Musical Instruments.' In: Musical Instruments. Hove: Wayland Publishers, pp. 1-48. (Traditions Around the World )

Tythacott, Louise (1994) 'Kinyozi: African Art between the boundaries.' In: Kinyozi: The Art of African Hairstyles. Brighton: Green Centre for Non-Western Art, pp. 9-21.

Tythacott, Louise (1994) 'Jewellery and Accessories.' In: Jewellery and Accessories. Hove: Wayland Publishers, pp. 1-48. (Traditions Around the World )

Articles

Tythacott, Louise (2017) 'Curating the Sacred: Exhibiting Buddhism at World Museum Liverpool.' Buddhist Studies Review. (Forthcoming)

Tythacott, Louise (2016) '英国军事类博物馆中的圆明园文物.' 美成在久 [Chinese Orientations], Sept. pp. 112-115. (Forthcoming)

Tythacott, Louise (2016) 'The power of taste: the dispersal of the Berkeley Smith collection of Chinese ceramics at Cheltenham Art Gallery & Museum (1921-1960).' Journal of the History of Collections, 28 (2). pp. 327-343.

Tythacott, Louise (2015) 'Trophies of War: Representing ‘Summer Palace’ Loot in Military Museums in the UK.' Museum and Society, 13 (4). pp. 469-488.

Tythacott, Louise (2011) 'Race on display: the “Melanian”, “Mongolian” and “Caucasian” galleries at Liverpool Museum (1896-1929).' Early Popular Visual Culture, 9 (2). pp. 131-146.

Tythacott, Louise (2010) 'Curiosities, Antiquities, Art Treasure, Commodities: collecting Chinese deity figures in mid-nineteenth-century England.' Journal of Museum Ethnography, 23. pp. 56-71.

Tythacott, Louise (2009) 'Sacred Island Deities.' Apollo , CLXIX (563). pp. 90-97.

Tythacott, Louise (2000) 'Khmer.' The Millennium Encyclopaedia. pp. 25-40.

Tythacott, Louise (1999) 'A Convulsive Beauty: Surrealism, Oceania and African Art.' Journal of Museum Ethnography (11). pp. 43-53.

Tythacott, Louise (1998) 'The African Collection at Liverpool Museum.' African Arts, XXXI (3). pp. 18-35.

Tythacott, Louise (1993) 'Colonel Green's Burma: Peoples and Textiles of the 1920s.' The Royal Pavilion Review (1). pp. 3-7.

Tythacott, Louise (1992) 'Chinese Robes in the Ethnography Gallery.' The Royal Pavilion Review (2). pp. 10-12.

Tythacott, Louise (1991) 'The Ernest Box Collection of Chinese Deities in Brighton Museum & Art Gallery.' The Royal Pavilion Review (2). pp. 8-10.

Book Reviews

Tythacott, Louise (2017) 'Review of: UNESCO in Southeast Asia: World Heritage Sites in Comparative Perspective. University of Hawaii Press, 2015.' Southeast Asia Research , 25 (1). pp. 98-100.

Tythacott, Louise (2016) 'Review of: The Great Chinese Art Transfer: How so Much of China’s Art Came to America by Michael St. Clair, Rowman & Littlefied, 2016.' The China Quarterly, 228 (December). pp. 1140-1142.

Tythacott, Louise (2015) 'Review of 'Heritage Management, Tourism, and Governance in China: Managing the Past to Serve the Present'.' International Journal of Heritage Studies , 21 (8). pp. 841-842.

Tythacott, Louise (2014) 'Review of 'Translating Museums: A Counterhistory of South Asian Museology' by Shaila Bhatti.' Museum History Journal, 7 (1). pp. 122-123.

Tythacott, Louise (2012) 'Review of 'The Empty Museum: Western Cultures and the Artistic Field in Modern Japan' by Masaaki Morishita.' International Journal of Heritage Studies, 18 (1). pp. 732-733.

Tythacott, Louise (2008) 'Review of 'Imperialism, Art and Restitution', edited by John Henry Merryman.' American Journal of Archaeology , 11 (2.3). pp. 1-2.

Tythacott, Louise (1997) 'Review of Valery M. Garrett, 'Chinese Clothing: an illustrated guide'.' The China Quarterly, 151 . pp. 682-684.

Shows/Exhibitions

Tythacott, Louise (2005) Asia Gallery (part of the World Cultures Gallery). [Shows/Exhibitions]

Tythacott, Louise (1996) Land of Tempests: New Art from Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua. [Shows/Exhibitions]

Tythacott, Louise (1996) The Impossible Science of Being: Dialogues Between Anthropology and Photography. [Shows/Exhibitions]

Tythacott, Louise (1995) Hold: Recent Work by Shirley Chubb. [Shows/Exhibitions]

Tythacott, Louise (1995) Fetishism: Visualising Power and Desire. [Shows/Exhibitions]

Tythacott, Louise (1994) Kinyozi: The Art of African Hairstyles. [Shows/Exhibitions]

Tythacott, Louise (1993) Textiles from Burma. [Shows/Exhibitions]

This list was generated on Sat Aug 19 03:18:33 2017 BST.