Courses and Seminars

SoSe 2020 | 14506.7001 EM | Einblicke in spez. Berufsfelder - Museum on the Couch (BA-EM1,3 | MA-EM3,4)

WiSe 2019/20 | 14506.7001 EM | Einblicke in spez. Berufsfelder - Museum on the Couch (BA EM1 | MA EM3)

Leipzig 2016-2018 | "Museum on the Couch" in Kooperationmit dem Grassi-Museum

Paris 2019/20 | "Les objets et les choses en sciences sociales : matérialités contemporaines, musées et patrimoines" (Avec Thierry Bonnot et Christelle Patin)

Short Biography

Bernard Müller is a researcher/lecturer in social anthropologist (PhD 2000) and scientific/cultural program designer. Born in 1966, Franco-German, he spent his childhood in Togo and lived in France between 1983 and 2015. He lives now in Cologne, Germany.

He studies staging processes such as scenic arrangements (theater, ritual, performance, etc.), museographic scenographies, or any type of situation that explicitly notes a form of "spectacle". Specialised in the cultural history of West Africa (Nigeria, Bénin Republic, Togo, Ghana), his basically comparative research also extends to other areas (Europe, Brazil) ; and focuses on the relationship between art and science today.

For the last 12 years, in collaboration with Thierry Bonnot, he has directed the seminar « Putting on stage and into narration : objects, texts and performances » at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (Paris). He is member of the Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire sur les enjeux sociaux, a laboratory for interdisciplinary research in social sciences.

He coordinated  « The Museum on the Couch » Seminar-Worshop at the Institut für Ethnologie at the University of Leipzig (Germany), in collaboration with the Sächsische Ethnographische Sammlungen (SES) and the IRIS-EHESS, an theoretical and practical space to reboot the worldmuseum concept.

As a cultural program designer, he conceived, counselled and implemented various cultural and scientific programs: exhibitions, lecture series, multimedia programs and coordinates the activities of CURIO (www.curioweb.org), a non profit association.

As a scientific adviser, he has collaborated with various cultural institutions such as the Musée du quai Branly (2007-2009), Centre George Pompidou, Cité Nationale de l'Histoire de l'Immigration-CNHI, la Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (Paris & Saint-Denis), Prins Claus Foundation, Fondation Dapper, l'Institut National de Recherches en Archéologie Préventive-INRAP, Musée en Herbe, Musée Vodou-Strasbourg, InExtenso-Paris (« Centre des cultures caribéennes », an ongoing project), etc. As an artistic collaborator, he accompanied personalities such as the writer Wole Soyinka (Nobel Prize for Literature 1986), the artists Yinka Shonibare and Daniel Spoerri.

He has published several books, free essays and articles in peer-reviewed journals.