In Exhibiting the Past, Kirk Denton analyzes types of museums and exhibitionary spaces, from revolutionary history museums, military museums, and memorials to martyrs to museums dedicated to literature, ethnic minorities, and local history. He discusses red tourism—a state sponsored program developed in 2003 as a new form of patriotic education designed to make revolutionary history come alive—and urban planning exhibition halls, which project utopian visions of China’s future that are rooted in new conceptions of the past. Denton’s method is narratological in the sense that he analyzes the stories museums tell about the past and the political and ideological implications of those stories. Focusing on “official” exhibitionary culture rather than alternative or counter memory, Denton reinserts the state back into the discussion of postsocialist culture because of its centrality to that culture and to show that state discourse in China is neither monolithic nor unchanging. The book considers the variety of ways state museums are responding to the dramatic social, technological, and cultural changes China has experienced over the past three decades.' - from book flap.
Includes a glossary of Chinese terms, a bibliography, and an index.
Onsite
English
capitalism,  museum studies,  history,  nationalism,  exhibition history,  China
2014
350
9780824836870
1
monograph
Introduction
National Origins and Local Identity: Museums of Premodern History
Exhibiting the Revolution: The Museum of the Chinese Revolution
Commodification and Nostalgia: Revolutionary History in the Era of the Market Economy
Martyrdom and Memory: Monuments, Memorials, and Museums for Dead Heroes
Martial Glory and the Power of the State: Military Museums
Heroic Resistance and Victims of Atrocity: Negotiating the Memory of Japanese Imperialism
Heroic Models and Exemplary Leaders: Memorial Halls
Literary Politics and Cultural Heritage: Modern Literature Museums
Ethnic Minorities and the Construction of National Identity: Ethnographic Museums
Revolutionary Memory and National Landscape: Red Tourism
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