How Museums Tell Stories

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-0-367-54906-0
Verlag: Routledge

Buch, Englisch, 146 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 394 g

How Museums Tell Stories explains how museums “work” as a form of media that narrates stories intentionally and unintentionally.

Story—in life and in museums—is a phenomenon that emerges as people perceive, represent, and interpret the qualities of tellability and narrativity in relation to stimuli. Tellability is noteworthiness: it attracts our attention. Narrativity is a set of elements that enables us to perceive a story is being or could be told. The book discusses how and why these qualities are so present in museums, and how they enable physical institutions to tell stories in many forms, at many scales, in many styles of representation, and to varying degrees. Drawing on conceptions of narrative from literary theory, film, psychology, and cognitive science, Wong offers a shared vocabulary for understanding and analyzing how story manifests in museums at the level of objects, collections, exhibitions, and space.

How Museums Tell Stories will be essential reading for researchers and students interested in how and why museums engage audiences, as well as museum and cultural heritage practitioners seeking concepts and analytical tools for approaching and evaluating their work more critically and conscientiously.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate, Professional, and Undergraduate

Autoren/Hrsg.

Wong, Amelia

Fachgebiete

• Interdisziplinäres Bibliothekswesen, Informationswissenschaften Bibliothekswesen, Informationswissenschaften, Archivwesen
• Geisteswissenschaften Kunst Kunst, allgemein Kunstsammlung, Museen, Ausstellungen
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein
• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Soziologie Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

List of figures; Introduction: How Museums Tell Stories; 1. Narrativity in Museums; 2. How Museum Objects Narrate; 3. How Museum Collections Narrate: Private Collections and Mimetic Narration; 4. How Museum Collections Narrate: Public Museums and Diegetic Narration; 5. How Museum Exhibitions Narrate; 6. How Museums Narrate Through Space; Conclusion: The Limits of Narrative and Museums; Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Amelia Wong is a content strategist and communications specialist who has worked in museums, universities, and government for nearly 20 years. She holds a BA in History/Art History from UCLA and a PhD in American Studies from the University of Maryland, College Park. She lives in Los Angeles, USA.