The Ethics of Collecting Trauma offers an interdisciplinary dialogue on the ethics of contemporary museums that are involved in collecting moments of collective trauma.Including a range of international contributions, the volume explores the ethics of collecting material that documents contemporary traumatic events. The case studies focus on four categories of such events: forced migration; terrorism attacks; major natural disasters; and cultural traumas, such as the ongoi...

MUSEUM THEORY EDITED BY ANDREA WITCOMB AND KYLIE MESSAGEMuseum Theory offers critical perspectives drawn from a broad range of disciplinary and intellectual traditions. This volume describes and challenges previous ways of understanding museums and their relationship to society. Essays written by scholars from museology and other disciplines address theoretical reflexivity in the museum, exploring the contextual, theoretical, and pragmatic ways museums wor...

Re-Imagining the Museum presents new interpretations of museum history and contemporary museum practices.Through a range of case studies from the UK, North America and Australia, Andrea Witcomb moves away from the idea that museums are always 'conservative' to suggest they have a long history of engaging with popular culture and addressing a variety of audiences. She argues that museums are key mediators between high and popular culture and between government, media practi...

Issues in Curating Contemporary Art and Performance proposes that the concept of curating is a complex field of enquiry. By drawing together artists, curators, architects and cultural theorists, it proposes new approaches to curating and ways of developing critical enquiry about this increasingly expanding field. Focusing on pertinent issues in curating contemporary art and performance, the book's four parts examine forms of thinking in contemporary curating; curating and the inte...

Historic sites, memorials, national parks, museums…we live in an age in which heritage is ever-present. But what does it mean to live amongst the spectral traces of the past, the heterogeneous piling up of historic materials in the present? How did heritage grow from the concern of a handful of enthusiasts and specialists in one part of the world to something which is considered to be universally cherished? And what concepts and approaches are necessary to understanding this global obsessi...

"The original Tourist Gaze was a classic, marking out a new land to study and appreciate. This new edition extends into fresh areas with the same passion and insight of the object. Even more essential reading!"- Nigel Thrift, Vice-Chancellor, Warwick UniversityThis new edition of a seminal text restructures, reworks and remakes the groundbreaking previous versions making this book even more relevant for tourism students, researchers and designers. ′...

In investigating the mutual and dynamic relationship between urban development and consumption, this book asks: how are cities moulded by consumption, and how is consumption moulded by cities?Consumption stands at the intersection of different spheres of everyday life: between the public and the private, the political and the personal, the individual and the social. It is considered to be a means and motor of social change; as an active ingredient in the construction of space and p...

Over the last decade, the concept of dark tourism has attracted growing academic interest and media attention. Nevertheless, perspectives on and understanding of dark tourism remain varied and theoretically fragile whilst, to date, no single book has attempted to draw together the conceptual themes and debates surrounding dark tourism, to explore it within wider disciplinary contexts and to establish a more informed relationship between the theory and practice of dark tourism. This book me...

As the twenty-first century moves towards its third decade, applied theatre is being shaped by contemporary economic and environmental concerns and is contributing to new conceptual paradigms that influence the ways in which socially engaged art is produced and understood. This collection offers fresh perspectives on the aesthetics, politics and histories of applied theatre. With contributions from leading scholars in the field, the book illuminates theatre in a diverse range of global con...

Examining international case studies including USA, Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Laurajane Smith identifies and explores the use of heritage throughout the world.Challenging the idea that heritage value is self-evident, and that things must be preserved because they have an inherent importance, Smith forcefully demonstrates that heritage value is not inherent in physical objects or places, but rather that these objects and places are used to give tangibility to the values that ...

In a series of richly detailed case studies from Britian, Australia and North America, Tony Bennett investigates how nineteenth- and twentieth-century museums, fairs and exhibitions have organized their collections, and their visitors.Discussing the historical development of museums alongside that of the fair and the international exhibition, Bennett sheds new light upon the relationship between modern forms of official and popular culture.Using Foucaltian perspectives ...

Museums and the Public Sphere investigates the role of museums around the world as sites of democratic public space.Explores the role of museums around the world as sites of public discourse and democracyExamines the changing idea of the museum in relation to other public sites and spaces, including community cultural centers, public halls and the internetOffers a sophisticated portrait of the public, and how it is realized, invoked, and understoo...