Footnote:
Includes bibliographical references
International conference proceedings
In English
Description:
Does war belong in museums? The representation of violence in exhibitions /Wolfgang Muchitsch --Introduction /Piet de Gryse --Museums and the representation of war /Jay Winter --Military museums and social history /Barton C. Hacker, Margaret Vining --Contents and space: new concept and new building of the Militärhistorisches Museum of the Bundeswehr /Gorch Pieken --From technical showroom to full-fledged museum: the German Tank Museum Munster /Ralf Raths --The Museum of Military History/Institute of Military History in Vienna: history, organisation and significance /Christian M. Ortner --The concept for a new permanent exhibition at the Museum Altes Zeughaus /Carol Nater Cartier --A pedagogical and educational approach to the two world wars at the Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and of Military History in Brussels /Christine Van Everbroeck, Sandrine Place, Sandra Verhulst --About the beauty of war and the attractivity of violence /Per B. Rekdal --The bomb and the city: presentations of war in German city museums /Susanne Hagemann --War in context: let the artifacts speak /Robert M. Ehrenreich, Jane Klinger --War museums and photography /Alexandra Bounia, Theopisti Stylianou-Lambert --The monument is invisible, the sign visible. Monuments in new perspectives /Werner Fenz --Politics of memory and history in the museum --the new "museum of the history of the Great Patriotic War" in Minsk/Belarus /Kristiane Janeke --Framing the military-nation: new war museums and changing representational practices in Turkey since 2002 /Patrizia Kern.
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?