Dr Ryan Nutting

Dr Ryan Nutting possesses over fifteen years of experience working in universities and heritage organizations in Germany, the United Kingdom, and United States. Ryan received his PhD from the School of Museum Studies and Victorian Studies Centre at the University of Leicester and is an Honorary Research Fellow at the School of Museum Studies. Ryan completed an International Fellowship at the Kulturwissenschaftliche Institut Essen (KWI) researching the interpretation of netsuke held by the Museum Folkwang since 2010 and recently served as the Programme Leader at for the MA in Public History and Heritage programme at the University of Derby and as an Early Career Research Fellow at Watts Gallery- Artists' Village.

Ryan received his PhD thesis in 2017 from the University of Leicester. This work examined the changing interpretation of four sets of miniature ethnographic models purchased by Frederick Horniman in Asia in 1894 and 1895 and displayed in the Horniman Free Museum until it closed in early 1898. Utilizing theories on miniature objects museum education and postcolonial theories it examined how the interpretation of these objects changed depending upon the viewer and how these models represent rich resources for examining late nineteenth-century British views of other cultures. Ryan's more recent work focuses on the history of collecting including the display and interpretation of objects to convey information and construct knowledge on places, cultures, and peoples in museums, museum education policies and practices in the late nineteenth century, and museum decolonization.

 Academic journal articles

“’The Corner Case Contains an Arctic Scene’: The Changing Interpretations of a Polar Bear and the Arctic at the Horniman Museum in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries” Nordisk Museologi 36:1 (2024) 64-86 https://doi.org/10.5617/nm.11593

“'Impressive Miniature Scenes Full of Life and Humour': The Changing Interpretation of Netsuke at the Museum Folkwang 2010-2021” Collections A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals 19:1 (2023) 49-68  https://doi.org/10.1177/15501906231159034

“’All Will be Amply Labelled…’ The Educational Policies of the Horniman Free Museum” in Museums and Society 19:3 (2021) 317-329 https://doi.org/10.29311/mas.v19i3.3170

“’He states that this is the most lovely building he has ever had the pleasure of seeing…’ the Travel Writing and Collecting of Frederick Horniman” in Journeys The International Journal of Travel and Travel Writing 22:2 (2021) 1-20 https://doi.org/10.3167/jys.2021.220201

Co-authored with Jeni Morris- “The Origin of the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester” in Museologica Brunensia 5:1 (2016) 62-67 http://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/135581

 Book chapters

 “’I visited the Natural History Museum, which is very good, and also the Mining Museum…’Frederick Horniman and His Reviews of Museum Practices at the end of the Nineteenth Century” in Turistas, visitantes, seguidores. El público de los museos entre los siglos XIX y XXI: perspectivas de futuro. Actas del IV Congreso Internacional celebrado el 17 de mayo de 2021. Cecila Casas Desantes and Demian Ramos San Pedro (coords.). Madrid: Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sports and Museo Cerralbo (2022) 40-51 https://en.calameo.com/read/000075335ebcdcceb15e6

Book Review

“Nina Simone’s Gum” in Collections A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals 18:4 (2022) 586-588 https://doi.org/10.1177/15501906221121621

Blog post

Interpreting the Past through Miniature Objects, posted by the Kulturwissenschaftliche Institut Essen (15 March 2021) https://blog.kulturwissenschaften.de/interpreting-through-miniature-objects/

Conference review

“Conference Review: Museums Alive! Exploring How Museums Behave Like Living Beings” in Museological Review 19 (2015) 5-8

https://le.ac.uk/museum-studies/about/journals/museological-review

 

Museum collecting and display practices in the nineteenth century; museum decolonization; tourist art; the interpretation and display of miniature objects and models

Academic journal articles

“’The Corner Case Contains an Arctic Scene’: The Changing Interpretations of a Polar Bear and the Arctic at the Horniman Museum in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries” Nordisk Museologi 36:1 (2024) 64-86 https://doi.org/10.5617/nm.11593

“'Impressive Miniature Scenes Full of Life and Humour': The Changing Interpretation of Netsuke at the Museum Folkwang 2010-2021” Collections A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals 19:1 (2023) 49-68  https://doi.org/10.1177/15501906231159034

“’All Will be Amply Labelled…’ The Educational Policies of the Horniman Free Museum” in Museums and Society 19:3 (2021) 317-329 https://doi.org/10.29311/mas.v19i3.3170

“’He states that this is the most lovely building he has ever had the pleasure of seeing…’ the Travel Writing and Collecting of Frederick Horniman” in Journeys The International Journal of Travel and Travel Writing 22:2 (2021) 1-20 https://doi.org/10.3167/jys.2021.220201

Co-authored with Jeni Morris- “The Origin of the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester” in Museologica Brunensia 5:1 (2016) 62-67 http://hdl.handle.net/11222.digilib/135581

 Book chapters

 “’I visited the Natural History Museum, which is very good, and also the Mining Museum…’Frederick Horniman and His Reviews of Museum Practices at the end of the Nineteenth Century” in Turistas, visitantes, seguidores. El público de los museos entre los siglos XIX y XXI: perspectivas de futuro. Actas del IV Congreso Internacional celebrado el 17 de mayo de 2021. Cecila Casas Desantes and Demian Ramos San Pedro (coords.). Madrid: Spanish Ministry of Culture and Sports and Museo Cerralbo (2022) 40-51 https://en.calameo.com/read/000075335ebcdcceb15e6

Book Review

“Nina Simone’s Gum” in Collections A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals 18:4 (2022) 586-588 https://doi.org/10.1177/15501906221121621

Blog post

Interpreting the Past through Miniature Objects, posted by the Kulturwissenschaftliche Institut Essen (15 March 2021) https://blog.kulturwissenschaften.de/interpreting-through-miniature-objects/

Conference review

“Conference Review: Museums Alive! Exploring How Museums Behave Like Living Beings” in Museological Review 19 (2015) 5-8

https://le.ac.uk/museum-studies/about/journals/museological-review

Watts Gallery- Artists’ Village- Early Career Research Fellowship 2023-2024                              

Advance HE Fellowship 2023

Kulturwissenschaftliche Institut Essen International Fellowship 2020-2021

Honorary Research Fellow University of Leicester School of Museum Studies 2017

University of Leicester Student Teaching Partnership Award 2014

Elizabeth Bishop Perkins Fellowship in Museum Practice and Research 2001

“’The Corner Case Contains an Arctic Scene’: The Changing Interpretations of a Polar Bear and the Arctic at the Horniman Museum in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries” on 20 October 2022 at Collecting the North at the University of Oslo in Oslo, Norway. 

"“’I…secured some interesting and genuine Egyptian relics for the Museum at Forest Hill’: Frederick Horniman’s Collecting and Interpretation of Egypt in the Late Nineteenth Century” on 8 November 2021 at Pyramids and Progress: Perspectives on the Entanglement of Imperialisms and Early Egyptology (1800-1950) at the Palace of the Academies in Brussels Belgium.

“’I visited the Natural History Museum which is very good and also the Mining Museum…’Frederick Horniman and His Reviews of Museum Practices at the end of the Nineteenth Century.” on 17 May 2021 at the IV International Meeting “Tourists Visitors Followers Museum Audiences between 19th and 21st Centuries: Prospects for the Future” at the Museo Cerralbo in Madrid Spain.

“’To the Land of the Rising Sun’: Frederick Horniman’s Travels in Japan” on 27 September 2019 at the At the Crossroads of Doubt: Anthropology and Anglophone Travel (XIXth-XXIth Centuries) conference at Sorbonne Université in Paris France. "

“Colonial Collecting and Representation” on 11 March 2021 as part of the Memory and Commemoration Course with the Academy in Exile at the Freie Universität in Berlin Germany. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcWNEC433-Y

Graduated from the University of Leicester Leicester England Received PhD from the School of Museum Studies

Graduated from Colorado State University Fort Collins Colorado Received M.A. in History with emphasis in Museum Studies Archival Studies Historic Preservation

Graduated Cum Laude from Concordia College Moorhead Minnesota Received B.A. with Double Major in History and English Literature