Religion, Cultural Politics, and Public Knowledge: An Essay Review of Kathleen C. Oberlin. (2020). Creating the creation Museum: How fundamentalist beliefs come to life. New York: New York University Press. pp. 269. Paper. ISBN 978147905709

Abstract

Almost all of the discussions surrounding educational policy focus their attention on particular places, especially various kinds of formal schooling. While this focus is of course crucial, it tends to ignore other educational sites where acts of teaching go on and where challenges to accepted understandings are waged. These include libraries and the topic of this essay, museums. Creating the Creation Museum clearly documents why such sites are worthy of our most serious attention. The book is a substantive contribution in a number of ways. It offers important critical insights about the Museum and its overt role in “advancing a long standing movement goal: advancing the cultural authority of creation science.” It also provides us with an expanded set of methodological tools for engaging in such work.