Politics of Display: Museums, Science, Culture

Charts the changing relationship between displays and their audience and analyses the shift in styles of representation towards interactive, multimedia and reflexive modes of display. Includes a wide range of case studies.

Notes on contributors, List of illustrations, Preface - Sharon Macdonald, 1. Exhibitions of power and powers of exhibitions: an introduction to the politics of display - Sharon Macdonald, Sheffield University, UK, 2. Speaking to the eyes: museums, legibility and the social order - Tony Bennett, Griffith University, Australia, 3. The visibility of difference: nineteenth century French anthropological collections - Nelia Dias, University of Lisbon, Portugal, 4. Reifying race: science and art in 'Races of Mankind' at the Field Museum of Natural History - Tracy Lang Teslow, University of Chicago, USA, 5. Making nature 'real' again: natural history and public rhetorics of science at the Smithsonian - Steven W. Allison-Bunnell, Discovery Online Channel, 6. On interactivity: consumer, citizens and culture - Andrew Barry, Goldsmith's College, London University, UK, 7. Supermarket science? Consumers and 'the public understanding of science' - Sharon Macdonald, 8. Nations on Display: technology and culture in Expo '92 - Penny Harvey, Manchester University, UK, 9. Strangers in paradise: an encounter with fossil man at the Dutch Museum of Natural History - Mary Bouquet, 10. Can science museums take history seriously? - Jim Bennett, Museum of the History of Science, Oxford, 11. 'Birth and Breeding: politics on display at the Wellcome Institute of Medical History - Ken Arnold, Wellcome Trust, 12. Balancing acts: science, Enola Gay and history wars at the Smithsonian - Tom Gieryn, Indiana University, USA, Afterword: From war to debate? - Sharon Macdonald