Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-rdxmf Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T09:05:19.021Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Review of Dan Hicks, The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution. 345 pp. Pluto Press, 2020.

Review products

Review of Dan Hicks, The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution. 345 pp. Pluto Press, 2020.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 January 2022

Elizabeth Marlowe*
Affiliation:
Colgate University, Hamilton, NY, United [email protected]

Abstract

Image of the first page of this content. For PDF version, please use the ‘Save PDF’ preceeding this image.'
Type
Book Review
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the International Cultural Property Society

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Adewumi, Afolosade. 2015. “Possessing Possession: Who Owns Benin Artefacts?Art, Antiquity and Law 20, no. 3: 229–42.Google Scholar
Agbontaen-Eghafona, Kokunre. 2010. “If the Treasures Are Returned: Views of Museums and the Cultural Heritage in Benin City.” In Whose Objects? Art Treasures from the Kingdom of Benin in the Collection of the Museum of Ethnography, Stockholm, edited by Wilhelm Östberg, 2227. Stockholm: Etnografiska Museet.Google Scholar
Appadurai, Arjun. 1986. “Introduction: Commodities and the Politics of Value.” In The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, edited by Arjun Appadurai, 363. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bauer, Alexander. 2019. “Itinerant Objects.” Annual Review of Anthropology 48: 335–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brodie, Neil. 2018. “Problematizing the Encyclopedic Museum: The Benin Bronzes and Ivories in Historical Context.” In Unmasking Ideology in Imperial and Colonial Archaeology: Vocabulary, Symbols, and Legacy, edited by Bonnie Effros and Guolong Lai, 6182. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Colla, Elliott. 2008. Conflicted Antiquities: Egyptology, Egyptomania, Egyptian Modernity. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Colwell, Chip. 2017. Plundered Skulls and Stolen Spirit: Insight the Fight to Reclaim Native America’s Culture. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ebegbulem, Simon. 2014. “Benin Monarch, NCMM Disagree over Reception for Returning Antiquities.” Vanguard, 5 June. https://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/06/benin-monarch-ncmm-disagree-reception-returning-antiquities/ (accessed 8 September 2021).Google Scholar
Effros, Bonnie, and Lai, Guolong, eds. 2018. Unmasking Ideology in Imperial and Colonial Archaeology: Vocabulary, Symbols, and Legacy. Los Angeles: Cotsen Institute of Archaeology Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eyo, Ekpo. 1994. “The Repatriation of Cultural Heritage: The African Experience.” In Museums and the Making of “Ourselves”: The Role of Objects in National Identity, edited by Kaplan, Flora E. S., 330–50. London: Leicester University Press.Google Scholar
Fagg, William. 1981. “Benin: The Sack That Never Was.” In Images of Power: Art of the Royal Court of Benin, edited by Flora, E. S. Kaplan, 2021. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Fennell, Marc (host). 2020, November 29. “Blood Art” (No. 2) [audio podcast episode] in ABC Radio National, Stuff the British Stole. https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/stuff-the-british-stole/blood-art/12867832 (accessed 8 September 2021).Google Scholar
Gosden, Christopher, and Larson, Frances. 2007. Knowing Things: Exploring the Collections at the Pitt Rivers Museum 1884–1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Gosden, Christopher, and Marshall, Yvonne. 1999. “The Cultural Biography of Objects.” World Archaeology 31, no. 2: 169–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Greenfield, Jeanette. 2007. The Return of Cultural Treasures, 3rd ed. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Home, Robert. 1982. City of Blood Revisited. London: Rex Collings.Google Scholar
Igbafe, Philip A. 1970. “The Fall of Benin: A Reassessment.” Journal of African History 11, no. 3: 385400.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Joyce, Rosemary A., and Gillespie, Susan D., eds. 2015. Things in Motion: Object Itineraries in Anthropological Practice. Santa Fe: School for Advanced Research Press.Google Scholar
Kersel, Morag. 2011. “When Communities Collide: Competing Claims for Archaeological Objects in the Market Place.” Archaeologies 7, no. 3: 518–37.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kopytoff, Igor. 1986. “The Cultural Biography of Things: Commoditization as Process.” In The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, edited by Arjun Appadurai, 6491. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kreps, Christina. 2008. “Indigenous Curation, Museums and Intangible Cultural Heritage.” In Intangible Heritage, edited by Laurajane Smith and Natsuko Akagawa, 193208. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Layiwola, Peju. 2014. “Making Meaning from a Fragmented Past: 1897 and the Creative Process.” Open Arts Journal 3: 8596.Google Scholar
Lonetree, Amy. 2012. Decolonizing Museums: Representing Native America in National and Tribal Museums. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Marstine, Janet. 2011. “The Contingent Nature of the New Museum Ethics.” In The Routledge Companion to Museum Ethics, edited by Janet Marstine, 325. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Murphy, Bernice L., ed. 2016. Museums, Ethics and Cultural Heritage. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
O’Neill, Mark. 2004. “Enlightenment Museums: Universal or Merely Global?Museum and Society 2, no. 3: 192202.Google Scholar
Okediji, Moyo. 1998. “On Reparations: Exodus and Embodiment.” African Arts 31, no. 2: 810.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Opoku, Kwame. 2012. “Nigeria Must Tell Holders of Looted Artefacts That the Game Is Over.” Modern Ghana, October 12. https://www.modernghana.com/news/423670/nigeria-must-tell-holders-of-looted-artefacts-that.html (accessed 8 September 2021).Google Scholar
Opoku, Kwame. 2019. “Benin Dialogue Group Removes Restitution of Benin Artefacts from Its Agenda.” Modern Ghana, April 2. https://www.modernghana.com/news/924239/benin-dialogue-group-removes-restitution-of-benin.html (accessed 8 September 2021).Google Scholar
Phillips, Barnaby. 2021. Loot: Britain and the Benin Bronzes. London: Oneworld.Google Scholar
Phillips, Ruth B. 2011. Museum Pieces: Toward the Indigenization of Canadian Museums. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen’s University Press.Google Scholar
Plankensteiner, Barbara, ed. 2007. Benin Kings and Rituals: Court Arts from Nigeria. Ghent: Snoeck.Google Scholar
Plankensteiner, Barbara. 2016. “The Benin Treasures: Difficult Legacies and Contested Heritage.” In Cultural Property and Contested Ownership: The Trafficking of Artefacts and the Quest for Restitution, edited by Brigitta Hauser-Schäublin and Lyndel Prott, 133–55. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Prott, Lyndel V., ed. 2009. Witness to History: A Compendium of Documents and Writings on the Return of Cultural Objects. Paris: United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).Google Scholar
Raicovich, Laura. 2019. “One Museum’s Complicated Attempt to Repatriate a ‘Benin Bronze.’Hyperallergic, 24 June. https://hyperallergic.com/506634/benin-bronze-head-interview/ (accessed 8 September 2021).Google Scholar
Shyllon, Folarin. 2006. “The Nigerian and African Experience on Looting and Trafficking in Cultural Objects.” In Art and Cultural Heritage. Law, Policy and Practice, edited by Hoffman, Barbara T., 137–44. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Shyllon, Folarin. 2010. “Unraveling History: Return of African Cultural Objects Repatriated and Looted in Colonial Times.” In Cultural Heritage Issues: The Legacy of Conquest, Colonization, and Commerce, edited by James Nafziger and Ann Nicgorski, 159–68. Leiden: Brill Publishers.Google Scholar
Shyllon, Folarin. 2018. “Benin Dialogue Group: Benin Royal Museum: Three Steps Forward, Six Steps Back.” Art, Antiquity and Law 23, no. 4: 341–46Google Scholar
Simpson, Moira. 2002. Making Representations: Museums in the Post-Colonial Era, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Singh, Kavita. 2009. “Universal Museums: The View from Below.” In Witness to History: A Compendium of Documents and Writings on the Return of Cultural Objects, edited by Prott, Lyndel V., 123–29. Paris: UNESCO.Google Scholar
Sowole, Tajudeen. 2013a. “US Museum Splits Benin Royal House.” Otedo News Update, 29 September. https://ihuanedo.ning.com/profiles/blogs/u-s-museum-splits-benin-royal-house (accessed 8 September 2021).Google Scholar
Sowole, Tajudeen. 2013b. “With Benin Kingdom Gallery, US Museum Legitimises Possession of Controversial Artefacts.” African Arts with Taj, 5 October. https://www.africanartswithtaj.com/2013/10/with-benin-kingdom-gallery-us-museum.html (accessed 8 September 2021).Google Scholar
Thomas, David Hurst. 2001. Skull Wars: Kennewick Man, Archaeology, and the Battle for Native American Identity. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Thomas, Nicholas. 1991. Entangled Objects. Exchange, Material Culture, and Colonialism in the Pacific. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Vrdoljak, Ana Filipa. 2006. International Law, Museums, and the Return of Cultural Objects. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar