Performing the Past

<p>A nostalgic interest in the past is a well-recognized feature of fast-changing contemporary societies. It finds its expression in a variety of history-making practices of which the establishment of local heritage museums is a major manifestation in many parts of the world today. Katriel develops a communication-centered perspective on the study of heritage museums and -- by extension -- other tourist sites highlighting the role of discourse in these institutionalized yet vernacular contexts of cultural production social legitimation and identity formation. <br><br> Descriptive and critical in orientation this book combines a close analysis of museum discourse with an exploration of such larger issues as:<br> * the socio-cultural role of museums as arenas for the production of collective memory <br> * the ideological and performative constraints that shape museum presentations <br> * the interfacing of verbal and visual codes of communication in the context of material displays <br> * the dialectical interplay of the local and the global in contemporary life and <br> * the interpenetration of the personal and the communal in vernacular processes of narrative production.<br><br> Of interest to scholars in communication linguistics anthropology history museum studies tourism intercultural communication middle eastern studies or those with interests in narratives material culture and ethnography.</p>