Affective Heritage and the Politics of Memory after 9/11: Curating Trauma at the Memorial Museum

The 9/11 Memorial Museum is a powerful cultural storyteller that examines the institutional curation of traumatic memory and its evocative power as a means of establishing cultural values and asking visitors to contemplate their identity in relation to difficult histories.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 192 pages
Publication date: 26 September 2022
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

The 9/11 Memorial Museum is a powerful cultural storyteller that critically examines the institutional curation of traumatic memory. These evocative spaces, drawing on aesthetic practices rooted in representing the 'unrepresentability of cultural trauma, particularly the Holocaust, are powerful and popular mediums for establishing cultural values and prompting visitors to contemplate their identity in relation to the difficult histories on display. Using primary data, this book raises important questions about the emotionally charged site. It explores what 'moral lessons' visitors are imparted with at the museum, who the cultural institution's primary audience is—the imagined community it reconstructs this traumatic history and safeguards its memories for—and what the National September 11 Memorial & Museum ultimately teaches visitors about history, themselves, and others. This work will be of interest to students and scholars in the fields of Human Geography, American Studies, Museum Studies, and Public History, Cultural and Heritage Studies, and Trauma and Memory Studies.

Memorial Museums are evocative spaces, drawing on aesthetic practices deeply rooted in representing the 'unrepresentability of cultural trauma, most notably the Holocaust. They are powerful, popular mediums for establishing cultural values, asking the visitor to contemplate their identity in relation to the difficult histories on display. Using primary data, this book poses important questions about the emotionally charged site. It explores what 'moral lessons' visitors are imparted with at the museum, who the cultural institution's primary audience is—the imagined community it reconstructs this traumatic history and safeguards its memories for—and what the National September 11 Memorial & Museum ultimately teaches visitors about history, themselves, and others.

The 9/11 Memorial Museum is a powerful cultural storyteller that critically examines the institutional curation of traumatic memory. These evocative spaces, drawing on aesthetic practices deeply rooted in representing the 'unrepresentability of cultural trauma, particularly the Holocaust, are powerful and popular mediums for establishing cultural values and prompting visitors to contemplate their identity in relation to the difficult histories on display. Using primary data, this book raises important questions about the emotionally charged site. It explores what 'moral lessons' visitors are imparted with at the museum, who the cultural institution's primary audience is—the imagined community it reconstructs this traumatic history and safeguards its memories for—and what the National September 11 Memorial & Museum ultimately teaches visitors about history, themselves, and others.

Weight: 328g
Dimension: 155 x 234 x 17 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367751388