Readings Week 2

This weeks readings: Ken Yellis' article "Fred Wilson, PTSD and Me," Paul Boyer's chapter, "Who's History Is It Anyways" in History Wars, and The Presence of the Past by Rosenzweig and Thelen.

The Yellis article is really thought-provoking and explores many of the basic questions regarding museum practice and the purpose and place of museums in America. Yellis commits in the article to the idea that a good exhibit must either 1) tell a new story or 2) tell an old story in a new way. And this made me wonder what our proposed exhibit for class will do. Are we retelling an old story, or writing a new one? Could we do both if we wanted to? Yellis' arguments that museums are a place people go for new insights into subjects, rather than information about them, reinforces the importance of informed but also innovative interpretation in exhibits.

Boyer's chapter in History Wars gives an overview of the Enola Gay controversy at the NASM, but more importantly it attempts to explain why that exhibit stirred up all the emotions that it did. Boyer raises the interesting point that seemed to be at the center of the controversy, who should be the ones determining historical meaning, historians or "the people"? Another important take-away from Boyer's essay was the importance of timing in the reception of historical interpretations. He points out that the 1960s was a far better time to question the official state narrative on any number of things, and that the 1990s was perhaps the worst time to challenge popular memory on the bombings of Hiroshima/Nagaskai because of its appeal as a sort of "last hurrah" at the 50th year anniversary for WWII vets.

Rosenzweig and Thelen's Presence of the Past, the results of a survey of the ways in which Americans engage with the past/history/narratives brings the important parts of the other pieces into perspective. Rosenzweig and Thelen found that people do actively engage with historical narratives, but in a personal  way. They create their own narratives to explain their family, group, and national pasts. The alienation and disconnect that many people feel from "history" in an educational or museum setting has little to do with interest in history and more to do with the way in which it is presented to the audience. Taking into account all of the readings it can be seen that an innovative, original, well-timed, inclusive and relevant exhibit, in which people can see their own personal stories, would be best received.