Concentration in Museum Theory & Practice

In collaboration with Duke’s Art, Art History & Visual Studies department, the Nasher Museum offers a Concentration in Museum Theory & Practice to undergraduates within the Art History major. The Concentration is limited to Art History majors, but courses are open to all students and taught at the museum. The series of classes allows students insight into the nature and ideology of the museum as a cultural institution, while also providing hands-on experience as students are taught and mentored by museum staff to gain essential career preparation.

This concentration includes thirteen courses in museum theory, curatorial practice, and object study, as well as Art History and the Visual Arts. Students selecting to pursue this concentration will graduate with a major in Art History, with a Concentration in Museum Theory and Practice designated on their official transcripts. Courses taught at the Nasher include Museum Theory & Practice, The Museum Object, History and Theory of Curatorial Practice, and the Curatorial Practicum. For more information on the concentration and the upcoming schedule of courses, contact Julia K. McHugh, Ph.D., Trent A. Carmichael Director of Academic Initiatives and Curator of Arts of the Americas, at julia.mchugh@duke.edu.

The Curatorial Practicum gives students the unique opportunity to conceptualize and execute an exhibition in the Nasher’s Incubator Gallery. Student co-curators create the artwork checklist, write interpretive text, design the floor plan, write tours, plan public programs for their exhibition, and more. Typically, students take on different roles in the class, becoming one-person departments just like a real art museum — curatorial, marketing, K-12 education, technology, exhibition design, academic initiatives and project management.

In the fall 2025 Curatorial Practicum, students organized the exhibition, Silvia Heyden: Weaving Notes & Nature, which reintroduced Heyden’s work to Duke, 54 years after her first solo exhibition at the Duke University Museum of Art. Featuring several of the same works shown in that early exhibition, the presentation at the Nasher highlighted her experimental pieces from the 1960s and 70s, traced the evolution of her bold techniques, and celebrated the lasting influence of the Durham community on her art. Previous Curatorial Practicum exhibitions include: On the Same Wavelength: Art, Science & Conservation, and Hung Liu: Living Memory.