Abstract
Rhetorician Kenneth Burke’s theory of identification usefully demonstrates how (and where) communities are able to engage with difficult, opposing viewpoints as they develop or maintain a sense of shared identity. Identification, “establishing a shared sense of values, attitudes, and interests with [an audience],” is promoted dialogically in the modern national museum in a way that it is difficult for classrooms to emulate. This article examines dialogic national identification particularly through the focus in museums on certain key objects that serve as what Burke termed “mythic images” that ambiguously unify multiple perspectives and translate their debates from the abstract to the concrete. By promoting the reflective identification of one’s personal memories with the collective memory of nationhood, national museums provide an aesthetic/pragmatic space for the dialogical embrace of a public identity that is not merely reflected in its exhibits but also continually reshaped by its visiting individuals. I end with the possibilities, or cautions, these mythic images suggest for varying types of communal identification—a tension inherent as well in Gert Biesta’s arguments for the meaning of a “good” education.
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Notes
Humans are seeking "for vocabularies that will be faithful reflections of reality" by developing "vocabularies that are selections of reality" that sometimes "function as a deflection of reality."
I participated as an editorial consultant at the end of this three-year project.
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Acknowledgments
Thanks to the Ohio State University and the Mershon Center for International Security Studies for the funding for the larger project this paper is based upon, as well as to the Eunamus Consortium, particularly Peter Aronsson, Simon Knell, and Bodil Axelsson, for their role in its development.
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Weiser, M.E. National Identity Within the National Museum: Subjectification Within Socialization. Stud Philos Educ 34, 385–402 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-014-9433-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11217-014-9433-4