Hilde Hein

Areas of Expertise

Aesthetics; Museum Theory; Feminist Philosophy


Email: hilde@brandeis.edu

Current Project

“Beginning Anew: A Feminist Introduction to Philosophy” replaces texts read in philosophy courses throughout America. It recasts male-originated foundational concepts and valorizes excluded female experience. The immediate target audience is academic, but my aim is to challenge acculturated norms falsely popularized as universal. I critique prevailing classroom practices and propose alternative orientations.

Biography

Hilde Hein was born in Germany and grew up in California. She studied at Reed College and Cornell, and received her Ph.D. in philosophy from the University of Michigan. She taught at Los Angeles State University, Tufts, Boston University, and Holy Cross College. Her interests include philosophy of law, biology, feminist theory and American philosophy. Research in aesthetics led to work in and on museums. She curated several exhibitions and wrote three books on museum theory and practice: The Exploratorium: The Museum as Laboratory (1990), The Museum in Transition: A Philosophical Perspective (2000), Public Art: Thinking Museums Differently (2006). A long-term member of the American Society for Aesthetics, she brought museology and the study of museums into that organization. After retiring from Holy Cross, Dr. Hein served as a Peace Corps Volunteer teaching in English in Morocco. She also worked in the Jewish Museum in Casablanca, and described that experience in Curator: The Museum Journal and The Jewish Women’s Literary Annual. Her current project reprises a feminist endeavor of the 1970’s to reassess the basic teaching of western philosophy in America.

Education

Ph.D., University of Michigan

M.A., Middlebury College

B.A., Cornell University

Representative Publications

Hein, Hilde. Public Art: Thinking Museums Differently. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press, 2006.

Hein, Hilde. “Redressing the Museum in Feminist Theory” Museum Management and Curatorship 22:1 (March 2007): 29-42.

Links

Curriculum Vitae