The papers explore experimental ways of theorizing and designing contemporary museums with an explicit interest in history and memory, personal encounters with historical exhibits, and the professional risks for collectors and curators shaping the institutional presentation of history and memory.
1. Introduction: of museums and memory Susan A. Crane; Part I. Thinking Through the Museum: 2. Archi(ve)textures of museology Wolfgang Ernst; 3. A museum and its memory: the art of recovering history Michael Fehr; 4. Curious cabinets and imaginary museums Susan A. Crane; 5. Geoffrey Sonnabend's 'obliscence: theories of forgetting and the problem of matter' An encapsulation courtesy of the Museum of Jurassic Technology; Part II. Memories in the Museum: 6. History and anti-history: photography exhibitions and Japanese national identity Julia Adeney Thomas; 7. Realizing memory, transforming history: Euro/American/Indians Diana Drake Wilson; 8. Global culture, modern heritage: re-membering the Chinese Imperial collections Tamara Hamlish; Part III. Collectors and Institutions: 9. The modern muses: Renaissance collecting and the cult of remembrance Paula Findlen; 10. The quarrel of the ancients and moderns in the German museums Suzanne Marchand; 11. The museum's discourse on art: the formation of curatorial art history in turn-of-the-century Berlin Alexis Joachimides; Notes; Index.