The Politics of Display: Museums Science Culture (Heritage: Care-Preservation-Management)

About this book

The assumption that museum exhibitions particularly those concerned with science and technology are somehow neutral and impartial is today being challenged both in the public arena and in the academy. The Politics of Display brings together studies of contemporary and historical exhibitions and contends that exhibitions are never and never have been above politics. Rather technologies of display and ideas about science and objectivity are mobilized to tell stories of progress citizenship racial and national difference. The display of the Enola Gay the aircraft which dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima is a well-known case in point. The Politics of Display charts the changing relationship between displays and their audience and analyzes the consequent shift in styles of representation towards interactive multimedia and reflexive modes of display. The Politics of Display brings together an array of international scholars in the disciplines of sociology anthropology and history. Examples are taken from exhibitions of science technology and industry anthropology geology natural history and medicine and locations include the United States of America Australia the United Kingdom France the Netherlands and Spain. This book is an excellent contribution to debates about the politics of public culture. It will be of interest to students of sociology anthropology cultural studies museum studies and science studies.