Overview

The first sustained critique of the ways museum exhibits shape cultural assumptions and political values Each year the more than seven thousand museums in the United States attract more attendees than either movies or sports. Yet until recently, museums have escaped serious political analysis. The past decade, however, has witnessed a series of unusually acrimonious debates about the social, political, and moral implications of museum exhibitions as varied as the Enola Gay display at the Smithsonian's Air and Space Museum and the Sensation exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum of Art. In this important volume, Timothy W. Luke explores museums's power to shape collective values and social understandings, and argues persuasively that museum exhibitions have a profound effect on the body politic. Through discussions of topics ranging from how the National Holocaust Museum and the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles have interpreted the Holocaust to the ways in which the American Museum of Natural History, the Missouri Botanical Gardens, and Tucson's Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum have depicted the natural world, Luke exposes the processes through which museums challenge but more often affirm key cultural and social realities.

Full Product Details

Author:   Timothy W. Luke
Publisher:   University of Minnesota Press
Imprint:   University of Minnesota Press
Dimensions:   Width: 14.90cm , Height: 1.80cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.440kg
ISBN:  

9780816619894

ISBN 10:   0816619891
Pages:   296
Publication Date:   29 April 2002
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Temporarily unavailable  
The supplier advises that this item is temporarily unavailable. It will be ordered for you and placed on backorder. Once it does come back in stock, we will ship it out to you.

Table of Contents

Introduction : museum exhibitions as powerplays -- Politics at the exhibition : aesthetics, history, and nationality in the culture wars of the 1990s -- Nuclear reactions : the (re)presentation of Hiroshima at the National Air and Space Museum -- Memorializing mass murder : the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum -- Signs of empire/empires of sign : Daimyo culture in the District of Columbia -- Inventing the Southwest : the Fred Harvey Company and Native American art -- Museum pieces : politics and knowledge at the American Museum of Natural History -- The Missouri Botanical Garden : sharing knowledge about plants to preserve and enrich life -- Southwestern environments as hyperreality : the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum -- Superpower aircraft and aircrafting superpower : the Pima Air and Space Museum -- Strange attractor : the Tech Museum of Innovation -- Channeling the news stream : the full press of a free press at the Newseum -- Conclusion : piecing together knowledge and pulling apart power at the museum.

Reviews

Author Information

Timothy W. Luke is University Distinguished Professor in the Department of Political Science at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University.

Tab Content 6

Author Website:  

Countries Available

All regions