Sheila Watson
Sheila Watson joined the Department (now School) of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester in 2003 as a lecturer in History and Museum Studies, following a career in museums. She is currently Programme Director of Learning and Visitor Studies in Museums and Galleries (LVS), a Distance Learning MA, a programme she developed and edited. She supervises PhD students in a range of topics which include the Irish Historic House, Viking identities in England and Iceland, and the use of living history in the interpretation of history for young people. Her research interests include the making national museums and their roles in the nation state in Europe, English identities in museums, the senses and history in museums, and community history, in particular the meanings different communities make within a historical framework.
Selected research
Sheila was one of the nine academics who had the highest proportion of world-leading rated research in any subject in any UK university in the December 2008 Research Assessment Exercise. She is currently involved in a variety of research projects of which the following is an example:
A three year European funded project with Professor Simon Knell on the history and role of National Museums, EuNaMus, working alongside a variety of European partners. She is Co-Investigator on this project and her interests here include interpreting the origins of nations in museums, the histories of national museums in the UK and the distributed museum.
Her research interests also include visitor perceptions of the museum and its narratives, communities and museums and the nature of the sensory experience in history museums.
Esteem indicators
Sheila is regularly invited to participate in conferences overseas and in the UK and the following are examples:
28 March – 2 April 2010 Invited participant at the 4th Unesco Heritage Symposium for Intangible Heritage, Abu Dhabi. Paper presented on community history and archaeology.
12 – 15 August 2009 Invited participant in the Future of History Museums conference at Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, USA Paper presented ‘Instrumentalism in history museums – can it be justified and does it work?’
6 -11 February 2010 Translating Knowledge Global Perspectives on Museum and Community Series, University of Michigan. Invited participant. Lecture on ‘Communities and museums – equal partners?’ and workshop on working with communities.
Key publications (selected) Books
Watson, S. 2007 (ed.) Museums and their Communities, London Routledge.
Knell, S., MacLeod, S. and Watson, S. 2007 (33% contribution) (eds) Museum Revolutions, London, Routledge.
Papers
Watson, S. 2011 ‘”Why can’t we dig like they do on Time Team?” The meaning of the past within working class communities’ International Journal of Heritage Studies Volume 17, Issue 4, 2011, 364 – 379.
Watson, S. (2010) ‘Myth, memory and the senses in the Churchill Museum’ in Sandra Dudley (ed) Museum Materialities: Objects, Engagements, Interpretations, London, Routledge
Watson, S. Dodd, J. and Jones, C. 2007 (60% contribution) Engage, Learn, Achieve: The Impact of Museum Visits on the Attainment of Secondary School Pupils in the East of England 2006 - 2007. RCMG, University of Leicester.
Watson, S. 2007 ‘History museums, community identities and a sense of place: rewriting histories’ in Simon Knell, Susanne MacLeod, Sheila Watson (eds) Museum Revolutions, Routledge, 160 - 172.
Watson, S. 2006 ‘England expects:’ Nelson as a symbol of local and national identity within the Museum,’ Museum and Society, November 2006. 4 (3) 129 – 151.
Papers in progress
Watson, S. 2012 ‘Communities and museums – equal partners?’ Paper submitted to Michigan University for publication in Karp, I (ed) Museums and Communities (possibly Routledge Meanings) Submitted and accepted
Watson, S, Kirk, R. and Steward, J. 2012 ‘Arsenic, wells and herring curing: Making new meanings in an old fish factory’ submitted for publication in S. MacLeod, J. Hale and L. Hanks (eds) Museum Meanings, Routledge, Submitted and accepted.
Watson, S. 2012 ‘Feeling, emotion and the nation: museums, history and the evocation of the senses’ in A. Witcomb and K Message (eds) Museum Theory: an expanded field. Invited contributor.