Does War Belong in Museums? : The Representation of Violence in Exhibitions / Wolfgang Muchitsch

• Funder: Knowledge Unlatched - KU Select 2016: Backlist Collection
• HerausgeberIn: Muchitsch, Wolfgang
• Author: Knowledge Unlatched - KU Select 2016: Backlist Collection
• Year of Publication: 2014
• Edition: 1st ed.
• Language: English
• Series: Edition Museumsakademie Joanneum ; Bd. 4.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (225 p.)
• Notes: International conference proceedings.

Presentations of war and violence in museums generally oscillate between the fascination of terror and its instruments and the didactic urge to explain violence and, by analysing it, make it easier to handle and prevent. The museums concerned also have to face up to these basic issues about the social and institutional handling of war and violence. Does war really belong in museums? And if it does, what objectives and means are involved? Can museums avoid trivializing and aestheticising war, transforming violence, injury, death and trauma into tourist sights? What images of shock or identification does one generate - and what images would be desirable?

»Ein instruktiver Band.« Christian Demand, Merkur, 68/7 (2014) Reviewed in: H-Soz-u-Kult, 10.10.2013, Christian Hirte Mitteilungen, 46/2 (2013)

Table of Contents

1 Editorial 2 Content 5 Does War Belong in Museums? The Representation of Violence in Exhibitions 9 Introduction 13 Museums and the Representation of War 21 Military Museums and Social History 41 Contents and Space: New Concept and New Building of the Militärhistorisches Museum of the Bundeswehr 63 From Technical Showroom to Full-fledged Museum: The German Tank Museum Munster 83 The Museum of Military History/Institute of Military History in Vienna: History, Organisation and Significance 99 The Concept for a New Permanent Exhibition at the Museum Altes Zeughaus 107 About the Beauty of War and the Attractivity of Violence 123 The Bomb and the City: Presentations of War in German City Museums 131 War in Context: Let the Artifacts Speak 145 War Museums and Photography 155 The Monument is Invisible, the Sign Visible. Monuments in New Perspectives 173 Politics of Memory and History in the Museum - The New "Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War" in Minsk/Belarus 185 Framing the Military-Nation: New War Museums and Changing Representational Practices in Turkey since 2002 203 Contributors 219