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Living history museums : undoing history through performance / Scott Magelssen.
Table of contents only Available online
View online- Format:
- Book
- Author/Creator:
- Magelssen, Scott, 1974-
- Language:
- English
- Subjects (All):
- Historical museums--United States.
- Historical museums.
- Historic sites--Interpretive programs--United States.
- Historic sites.
- Performing arts--United States--Philosophy.
- Performing arts.
- Performing arts--United States--Technique.
- Historical reenactments--United States.
- Historical reenactments.
- Historical museums--Public relations--United States.
- Public history--United States.
- Public history.
- Historical museums--Public relations.
- Technique.
- Philosophy.
- Historic sites--Interpretive programs.
- United States.
- Physical Description:
- xxviii, 207 pages, 16 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations ; 23 cm
- Place of Publication:
- Lanham, Md. : Scarecrow Press, 2007.
- Summary:
- Living history museums merge historical exhibits with live, costumed performance. While unique and vitally important, they sometimes compromise historical accuracy and authenticity for the sake of tourism and entertainment value and often employ outdated methods of performance and historiography. Living History Museums: Undoing History through Performance examines the performance practices used by institutions such as Plimoth Plantation and Colonial Williamsburg, offering a new genealogy of living history museum performance in both the United States and Europe.
- Existing scholarship on living history museums addresses the subject from a museum-studies or anthropology perspective. With his background in theatre history and theory, however, Scott Magelssen analyzes living history museums using postmodern methodology. He offers suggestions for performance in an increasingly postmodern landscape, presents performance as a method for the study of history, explores emergent nontraditional theatrical practices, and concludes with an international listing of institutions and complete list of sources. Living History Museums is an invaluable resource for students and teachers of folklore and popular culture, as well as theatre, performance, and cultural, American, and museum studies.
- Contents:
- The dilemmas of contemporary living museum historiography in theory and practice
- The progressive development narrative of living museum history
- Progressive histories : major works
- The progressive development narrative in practice
- (In)authentic revolutions : time, space, and living history museums
- Plimoth Plantation
- Colonial Williamsburg
- Old Sturbridge Village
- Storytelling vs. scientific discourse
- Toward a new genealogy of living museum performance
- A historiography of immanence
- Defining an episteme
- An emergence within a shifting field
- Capitalizing on the past- capitalizing on loss
- Social history and the trajectory of living museum performance
- The naturalistic ideal
- Living history as pleasure
- Performance as historiography at living history museums
- The historiography of performance
- The field
- Missed opportunities
- Alternatives to the naturalistic mode
- Post-tourists and living museum performance.
- Notes:
- Includes bibliographical references (pages 179-197) and index.
- ISBN:
- 0810858657
- 9780810858657
- OCLC:
- 71348659
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