Exhibiting the Past : Historical Memory and the Politics of Museums in Postsocialist China

During the Mao era, China’s museums served an explicit and uniform propaganda function, underlining official Party history, eulogizing revolutionary heroes, and contributing to nation building and socialist construction. With the implementation of the post-Mao modernization program in the late 1970s and 1980s and the advent of globalization and market reforms in the 1990s, China underwent a radical social and economic transformation that has led to a vastly more heterogeneous culture and polity. Yet China is dominated by a single Leninist party that continues to rely heavily on its revolutionary heritage to generate political legitimacy. With its messages of collectivism, self-sacrifice, and class struggle, that heritage is increasingly at odds with Chinese society and with the state’s own neoliberal ideology of rapid-paced development, glorification of the market, and entrepreneurship. In this ambiguous political environment, museums and their curators must negotiate between revolutionary ideology and new kinds of historical narratives that reflect and highlight a neoliberal present. In __Exhibiting the Past__, Kirk Denton analyzes types of museums and exhibitionary spaces, from revolutionary history museums, military museums, and memorials to martyrs to museums dedicated to literature, ethnic minorities, and local history. He discusses red tourism—a state sponsored program developed in 2003 as a new form of patriotic education designed to make revolutionary history come alive—and urban planning exhibition halls, which project utopian visions of China’s future that are rooted in new conceptions of the past. Denton’s method is narratological in the sense that he analyzes the stories museums tell about the past and the political and ideological implications of those stories. Focusing on “official” exhibitionary culture rather than alternative or counter memory, Denton reinserts the state back into the discussion of postsocialist culture because of its centrality to that culture and to show that state discourse in China is neither monolithic nor unchanging. The book considers the variety of ways state museums are responding to the dramatic social, technological, and cultural changes China has experienced over the past three decades.

Nancy Rosenberger investigates the nature of long-term resistance in a longitudinal study of more than fifty Japanese women over two decades. Between 25 and 35 years of age when first interviewed in 1993, the women represent a generation straddling the stable roles of post-war modernity and the risky but exciting possibilities of late modernity. Rosenberger builds a conceptual framework of long-term resistance that undergirds the struggles and successes of modern Japanese women. Her findings resonate with broader anthropological questions about how change happens in our global-local era and suggests a useful model with which to analyze ordinary lives in the late modern world.

Rosenberger's analysis establishes long-term resistance as a vital type of social change in late modernity where the sway of media, global ideas, and friends vies strongly with the influence of family, school, and work. Women are at the nexus of these contradictions, dissatisfied with post-war normative roles in family, work, and leisure and yet committed to a search for self that shifts uneasily between self-actualization and selfishness. The women's rich narratives and conversations recount their ambivalent defiance of social norms and attempts to live diverse lives as acceptable adults. In an epilogue, their experiences are framed by the aftermath of the 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which is already shaping the future of their long-term resistance.

Drawing on such theorists as Ortner, Ueno, the Comaroffs, Melucci, and Bourdieu, Rosenberger posits that long-term resistance is a process of tense, irregular, but insistent change that is characteristic of our era, hammered out in the in-between of local and global, past and future, the old virtues of womanhood and the new virtues of self-actualization.

During the Mao era, China’s museums served an explicit and uniform propaganda function, underlining official Party history, eulogizing revolutionary heroes, and contributing to nation building and socialist construction. With the implementation of the post-Mao modernization program in the late 1970s and 1980s and the advent of globalization and market reforms in the 1990s, China underwent a radical social and economic transformation that has led to a vastly more heterogeneous culture and polity. Yet China is dominated by a single Leninist party that continues to rely heavily on its revolutionary heritage to generate political legitimacy. With its messages of collectivism, self-sacrifice, and class struggle, that heritage is increasingly at odds with Chinese society and with the state’s own neoliberal ideology of rapid-paced development, glorification of the market, and entrepreneurship. In this ambiguous political environment, museums and their curators must negotiate between revolutionary ideology and new kinds of historical narratives that reflect and highlight a neoliberal present. In this book, Kirk Denton analyzes types of museums and exhibitionary spaces, from revolutionary history museums, military museums, and memorials to martyrs to museums dedicated to literature, ethnic minorities, and local history. He discusses red tourism — a state sponsored program developed in 2003 as a new form of patriotic education designed to make revolutionary history come alive — and urban planning exhibition halls, which project utopian visions of China’s future that are rooted in new conceptions of the past Contents Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction Chapter 1. National Origins and Local Identity Museums of Premodern History Chapter 2. Exhibiting the Revolution The Museum of the Chinese Revolution Chapter 3. Commodification and Nostalgia Revolutionary History in the Era of the Market Economy Chapter 4. Martyrdom and Memory Monuments, Memorials, and Museums for Dead Heroes Chapter 5. Martial Glory and the Power of the State Military Museums Chapter 6. Heroic Resistance and Victims of Atrocity Negotiating the Memory of Japanese Imperialism Chapter 7. Heroic Models and Exemplary Leaders Memorial Halls Chapter 8. Literary Politics and Cultural Heritage Modern Literature Museums Chapter 9. Ethnic Minorities and the Construction of National Identity Ethnographic Museums Chapter 10. Revolutionary Memory and National Landscape Red Tourism Chapter 11. Museums of the Future Municipal Urban Planning Exhibition Halls Conclusion Notes Glossary Bibliography Index About the Author A Study Of Museums, And Their Representation Of History, In Post-mao China. National Origins And Local Identity: Museums Of Premodern History -- Exhibiting The Revolution: The Museum Of The Chinese Revolution -- Commodification And Nostalgia: Revolutionary History In The Era Of The Market Economy -- Martyrdom And Memory: Monuments, Memorials, And Museums For Dead Heroes -- Martial Glory And The Power Of The State: Military Museums -- Heroic Resistance And Victims Of Atrocity: Negotiating The Memory Of Japanese Imperialism -- Heroic Models And Exemplary Leaders: Memorial Halls -- Literary Politics And Cultural Heritage: Modern Literature Museums -- Ethnic Minorities And The Construction Of National Identity: Ethnographic Museums -- Revolutionary Memory And National Landscape: Red Tourism -- Museums Of The Future: Municipal Urban Planning Exhibition Halls. Kirk A. Denton. Includes Bibliographical References (pages 309-335) And Index.