The Politics of Display: Museums, Science, CultureSharon Macdonald 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. |
Contents
museums legibility and the social order | 25 |
nineteenthcentury French | 36 |
science and art in Races of Mankind at the Field | 53 |
natural history exhibits and public | 77 |
consumers citizens and culture | 98 |
Supermarket science? Consumers and the public understanding | 118 |
technology and culture in Expo | 139 |
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anthropology artefacts balance Bennett Birth and Breeding bomb Broca bronze Cambridge Chapter Chicago collections concept contemporary context controversy Correll craniology critics Crossroads cultural curators debate Dubois Enola Gay erectus Eugène Dubois example exhibition-making exhibitionary Exploratorium Expo 92 facts Field Museum figures film Food for Thought fossil gallery Haraway Harwit Henry Field historians History Wars Hoffman Homo erectus human ibid idea images knowledge laboratory Laufer Leaf Thieves London Malvina Hoffman modern Molella Museum of Natural museum visitors museums of science narrative National Museum natural history museums nineteenth century objects particular pavilion perspectives physical Pithecanthropus Pithecanthropus erectus political presented production public understanding Races of Mankind racial types representation rhetoric role Routledge science and technology science centres Science in American Science Museum scientific scientists script sculptures Silverstone Smithsonian Institution social space Tony Bennett Understanding of Science University Press Wellcome World's Fairs