The Birth of the Museum: History, Theory, Politics (Culture : Policy and Politics)

What is the cultural function of the museum? How did modern museums evolve? Tony Bennett's invigorating study enriches and challenges our understanding of the museum, placing it at the centre 01' modern relations of culture and government. Bennett argues that the public museum should be understood not just as a place of instruction but as a reformatory of manners in which a wide range of regulated social routines and performances take place. Discussing the historical development of museums alongside that of the fair and the international exhibition, he sheds new light upon the relationship between modern forms of official and popular culture. In aseries of richly detailed case studies from Britain, Australia and North America, Bennett investigates how nineteenth- and twentieth-century museums, fairs and exhibitions have organised their collections, and their visitors. His use of Foucaultian perspectives and his consideration of museums in relation to other cultural institutions of display provides a distinctive perspective on contemporary museum policies and politics. Cover The Birth of the Museum Title Page Copyright Page Table of Contents List of figures Acknowledgements Introduction Part I History and theory 1 The Formation of the Museum Museums and the public sphere The reordering of things Transparency and social regulation 2 The Exhibitionary Complex Discipline, surveillance, spectacle Seeing things The exhibitionary disciplines The exhibitionary apparatuses Conclusion 3 The Political Rationality of the Museum The birth of the museum An order of things and peoples The museum and public manners The political-discursive space of the museum Part II Policies and politics 4 Museums and 'the People' A countryside of the mind: Beamish Peopling the past: Scandinavian and American forerunners Other peoples, other pasts Questions of framework 5 Out of Which Past? Perspectives on the past The formation of an Australian past: contours of a history The shape of the past 6 Art and Theory: The Politics of the Invisible Part III Technologies of progress 7 Museums and Progress: Narrative, Ideology, Performance Organized walking as evolutionary practice Progress and its performances Selective affinities Evolutionary automata One sex at a time 8 The Shaping of Things to Come: Expo '88 Evolutionary exercises Civic callisthenics 9 A Thousand and One Troubles: Blackpool Pleasure Beach Modernity and respectability The Pleasure Beach and Blackpool A site of pleasures A world turned upside down? Notes Bibliography Index

In a series of richly detailed case studies from Britian, Australia and North America, Tony Bennett investigates how nineteenth- and twentieth-century museums, fairs and exhibitions have organized their collections, and their visitors.

Discussing the historical development of museums alongside that of the fair and the international exhibition, Bennett sheds new light upon the relationship between modern forms of official and popular culture.

Using Foucaltian perspectives The Birth of the Museum explores how the public museum should be understood not just as a place of instruction, but as a reformatory of manners in which a wide range of regulated social routines and performances take place.

This invigorating study enriches and challenges the understanding of the museum, and places it at the centre of modern relations between culture and government. For students of museum, cultural and sociology studies, this will be an asset to their reading list.

"In a series of richly detailed studies from Britain, Australia and North America, Tony Bennett investigates how 19th and 20th century museums, fairs and exhibitions have organised their collections and their visitors. Discussing the historical development of museums alongside that of the fair and the international exhibition, Bennett sheds new light upon the relationship between modern forms of official and popular culture. Using Foucaltian perspectives The Birth of the Museum explores how the public museum should be understood not just as a place of instruction, but as a reformatory of manners in which a wide range of regulated social routines and performances take place. This invigorating study enriches and challenges the understanding of the museum, and places it at the centre of modern relations between culture and government. For students of museum, cultural and sociology studies, this will be an asset to their reading list"--Publisher's description This text challenges our understanding of the modern museum. Suggesting that we view the public museum not just as a place of instruction but as a reformatory of manners which provides for a wide range of regulated social routines and performances, Tony Bennett places the museum at the centre of modern relations of culture and government. Juxtaposing the museum's development alongside that of the fair and the international exhibition and interpreting these as interacting technologies of progress, Bennett throws new light on the relations between modern forms of official and popular culture. Case studies include a consideration of the role of evolutionary ideas in organizing the representations of 19th-century museums, fairs and exhibitions as well as the itineraries of their visitors