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by Elif M. Gokcigdem (Editor)
Fostering Empathy through Museums features fifteen case studies with clear take-away ideas, and lessons learned by vividly illustrating a spectrum of approaches in the way museums are currently employing empathy, a critical skill that is relevant to personal, institutional, economical, and societal progress. The need is rapidly growing for empathy to serve as a lens through which we find our purpose and connection in a complex world. This demand brings with it an appetite to cultivate it through safe and trusted platforms. Museums are uniquely equipped to undertake this important mission. This book will help museum staff and leadership at all levels working at a variety of museums (from animal sanctuaries to art museums, from historic house museums to children's and science museums) to better understand the multitude of ways how empathy can be cultivated, and employed in museum setting.
Author Biography
Elif M. Gokcigdem, Ph.D. is a historian of Islamic art and a museums scholar with a doctorate in History of Art from Istanbul Technical University, and a graduate certification from The George Washington University's Museum Studies program. A native of Istanbul, her academic studies focused on the symbolism of geometric patterns and figural imagery in medieval Islamic art. She received the Turkish Education Foundation scholarship to conduct her graduate museum studies at GWU. Later, she worked at the Smithsonian Institution's Freer and Sackler Galleries as a curatorial research assistant in the Islamic Arts department, and held advisory roles as a member of the American Alliance of Museum (AAM)'s National Program Advisory Committee, and The George Washington University Museum and The Textile Museum's Advisory Council.
