Abstract
What should a canon for historical museums look like in a postmodern, democratic society? Recently, museums have again been asked to assist in the making of national, European or global identities. Can they achieve this? Should museums fall back on a grand narrative to edify their visitors? Should they exhibit their objects as traces from a closed, nostalgically longed-for past? Or could museums show their objects in a way that invites questions and discussions about the present, so that these traces may contribute to a democratic future?
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
Notes
J. Habermas, ‘Modernity versus Postmodernity’, New German Critique, XXII (1981): 3–14.
For the changing economic and cultural environment of cultural institutions see B.J. Pine and J.H. Gilmore, The Experience Economy: Work is Theatre and Every Business is a Stage: Goods and Services are no Longer Enough (Boston, MA, 1999).
A. de Jong, De dirigenten van de herinnering. Musealisering en nationalisering van de volkscultuur in Nederland 1815–1940 (Nijmegen, 2001), p. 392.
See J. Huizinga, ‘Het aesthetische bestanddeel van geschiedkundige voorstellingen’, in J. Huizinga (ed.), Verzamelde werken VII (Haarlem, 1950), pp. 3–28.
For a discussion of Huizinga’s possibly ‘sacred’ conception of historical representations see H. Henrichs, ‘Een zichtbaar verleden? Historische musea in een visuele cultuur’, Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, CXVII (2004): 230–48.
S. Bann, ‘“Views of the Past”. Reflections on the Treatment of Historical Objects and Museums of History’, in The Inventions of History. Essays on the Representation of the Past (Manchester and New York, 1990), p. 143.
J. Rüsen, ‘Für eine Didaktik historischer Museen’ in J. Rüsen (ed.), Geschichte sehen. Beiträge zur Ästhetik historischer Museen (Pfaffenweiler, 1988), p. 12.
For Habermas’ role in the historians’ debate about the Nazi mass crimes and his defence of the Basic Law (Grundgesetz) of 1949, intended as a provisional document but one of the most liberal, universalistic and democratic constitutions ever devised, see M. Pensky, ‘Universalism and the Situated Critic’, in S.K. White (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Habermas (Cambridge, 1995), pp. 67–94.
H. Boockmann, ‘Die “Erinnerungsstätte für die Freiheitsbewegungen in der Deutschen Geschichte” in Rastatt’, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, XXVIII (1977): 285;
H. Boockmann, Geschichte im Museum: zu den Problemen und Aufgaben eines Deutschen Historischen Museums (München, 1987).
Also H. Weber (ed.), Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit. Erinnerungsstätte für die Freiheitsbewegungen in der deutschen Geschichte. Katalog der ständigen Ausstellung (Bönen, 2002).
J. Herf, ‘Abstraction, Specificity, and the Holocaust: Recent Disputes over Memory in Germany’, Bulletin of the German Historical Institute London, XXII (2000): 24. In the case of the Haus der Geschichte, the term Entkonkretisierung pointed to the fact of ‘neglecting the issue of the continuity of functional élites of the Third Reich into the Federal Republic’.
M. Werner, ‘Deux nouvelles mises en scène de la nation allemande. Les expériences du Deutsches Historisches Museum (Berlin) et du Haus der Geschichte der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Bonn)’, in F. Hartog and J. Revel (eds), Les usages politiques du passé (Paris, 2001), p. 85.
G. Korff and M. Roth (eds), Das historische Museum. Labor, Schaubühne, Identitätsfabrik (Frankfurt and New York, 1990).
K.E. Till, ‘Verortung des Museums. Ein geo-ethnographisher Ansatz zum Verständnis der sozialen Erinnerung’, in R. Beier (ed.), Geschichtskultur in der zweiten Moderne (Frankfurt and New York, 2000), p. 200.
R. Beier, ‘Deutsch-deutsche Befindlichkeiten. Die Besucherbücher der Ausstellung “Lebensstationen in Deutschland” als Spiegel der mentalen Lage der Nation’, Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, XL (1995): 206–22, 214.
H. Ottomeyer and H.-J. Czech, ‘A Place with a History — a Place for History’, in L. Koschnick (ed.), German Historical Museum. German History in Pictures and Documents (Munich, 2006), p. 10. See also the museum website, www.dhe.de.
M. Baxandall, ‘Exhibiting Intention: Some Preconditions of the Visual Display of Culturally Purposeful Objects’, in I. Karp and S.D. Lavine (eds), Exhibiting Cultures: the Poetics and Politics of Museum Display (Washington and London, 1991), pp. 33–41.
J. Huizinga, ‘Het historisch museum’, in Verzamelde Werken II (Haarlem, 1948), pp. 559–69, p. 567 (author’s translation).
L. Koschnick, ‘Barocke Kultur’, in L. Koschnick (ed.), Bilder und Zeugnisse der deutschen Geschichte. Aus den Sammlungen des Deutschen Historischen Museums (Berlin, 1997), p. 200.
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2007 Hendrik Henrichs
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Henrichs, H. (2007). Truth, Power and Beauty: Rethinking the Nation in German Historical Museums. In: Grever, M., Stuurman, S. (eds) Beyond the Canon. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230599246_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230599246_8
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-349-35446-7
Online ISBN: 978-0-230-59924-6
eBook Packages: Palgrave History CollectionHistory (R0)