Museums as Engines of Identity: “Vienna around 1900” and Exhibitionary Cultures in Vienna—A Comment

ERIC HOBSBAWM'S PHRASE, 'INVENTION OF TRADITION,' describes the new function of the institution of the museum in the late modern period. In the 1980s, museums and the new format of major historical exhibitions became hotspots of social energy, becoming places that shaped identities, c...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Austrian history yearbook 2015-01, Vol.46, p.97-105
Main Author: Uhl, Heidemarie
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Energy
Factories
Forum: Museums and Material Culture in Vienna
Hegemony
History
Identity
Institution Building
Modernity
Museums
Nineteenth Century
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Summary:ERIC HOBSBAWM'S PHRASE, 'INVENTION OF TRADITION,' describes the new function of the institution of the museum in the late modern period. In the 1980s, museums and the new format of major historical exhibitions became hotspots of social energy, becoming places that shaped identities, challenged them, and repeatedly negotiated them anew. Already back in the time of nation building in the nineteenth century, the institution of the museum played a very important role in constructing and legitimating hegemonic perceptions of society, state, nation, culture, and history, as contributions from Anita Aigner, Reinhard Johler, and Diana Reynolds-Cordileone in this forum show. As central factories of modernity, museums were, of course, also connected with the related othering mechanisms that helped to produce hegemonic understandings of identity. Adapted from the source document.
ISSN:0067-2378
1558-5255
DOI:10.1017/S0067237814000125