Revisiting the Past in Museums and at Historic Sites demonstrates that museums and historic spaces are increasingly becoming "backdrops" for all sorts of appropriations and interventions that throw new light upon the objects they comprise and the pasts they reference. Rooted in new scholarship that expands established notions of art installations, museums, period rooms, and historic sites, the book brings together contributions from scholars from intersecting disciplines. Arguing that we are witnessing a paradigm shift concerning the place of historic spaces and museums in the contemporary imaginary, the volume shows that such institutions are merging traditional scholarly activities tied to historical representation and inquiry with novel modes of display and interpretation, drawing them closer to the world of entertainment and interactive consumption. Case studies analyze how a range of interventions impact historic spaces and conceptions of the past they generate. The book concludes that museums and historic sites are reinventing themselves in order to remain meaningful and to play a role in societies aspiring to be more inclusive and open to historical and cultural debate. Revisiting the Past in Museums and at Historic Sites will be of interest to students and faculty who are engaged in the study of museums, art history, architectural and design history, social and cultural history, interior design, visual culture, and material culture.

Using the example of New Walk Museum, Leicester, and its collections, the complexity, multi-causality, and reasons for change in museums are examined and explained. The 170 years history of New Walk provides an original basis and innovative approach to be adopted towards explaining museum change. The book makes use of original interview and archive material to examine how and why social, economic, political, and professional developments affected the work that was undertaken in New Walk. The time-span covered is much longer than is normal for a book on museum history and is longer than for almost all the national museums in the UK, with this allowing for a nuanced understanding of the causes and consequences of museum change over time. The problems and possibilities of undertaking museum history research are also discussed. Detailed examination of the ways in which a variety of societal developments fed into museum change is a key feature of the book. The book is aimed at all those with an interest in understanding how and why change affects museum practice and will be of interest to museum professionals, academics, and students in museum studies, history, politics, and sociology as well to the general museum visitor who would like to discover more about the institutions that they visit.

The senses in interior design examines how sight, touch, smell, hearing and taste have been mobilised within various forms of interiors. The chapters explore how the body navigates and negotiates the realities of designed interiors and challenge the traditional focus on star designers or ideal interiors that have left sensorial agency at the margins of design history. From the sensually gendered role of the fireplace in late sixteenth century Italy to the synaesthetic décors of Comte Robert de Montesquiou and the sensorial stimuli of Aesop stores, each chapter brings a new perspective on the central role that the senses have played in the conception, experiences and uses of interiors.

Reconsidering Interpretation of Heritage Sites chronicles and problematizes the representation of the eighteenth century in museums and heritage sites while also challenging public historians to alter their perceptions of what might be possible when interpreting such sites. Much of the history consumed at eighteenth-century historic sites is one-dimensional, white, male, heteronormative, and very focused on power and wealth. Anne Lindsay argues that this narrative may be challenged through an engagement with the everyday life of the past, creating thought-provoking and challenging experiences that will connect with the modern visitor on a deeper level. Unlike other work that has been done in the field, the book provides a constructive study that engages in a horizontal analysis of a century over a geographic region. As a result, Lindsay provides a unique opportunity for scholars and practitioners to reflect on the types and tone of messages usually conveyed about the eighteenth century. Reconsidering Interpretation of Heritage Sites will be invaluable to scholars and practitioners working in the fields of museum and heritage studies and history. It will be particularly interesting to those who want to know more about how the lived experience of the past may be interpreted at historic sites, and how this could be used to engage with contentious histories.

Revisiting Museums of Influence presents 50 portraits of a range of European museums that have made striking innovations in public quality over the past 40 years. In so doing, the book demonstrates that excellence can be found in museums no matter their subject matter, scale, or source of funding. Written by leading professionals in the field of museology, who have acted as judges for the European Museum of the Year Award, the portraits describe museums that had, or should have had, an influence on other museums around the world. The portraits aim to capture the moment when this potential was identified, and the introduction will locate the institutions in the wider history of museums in Europe over the period, as well as drawing out common themes of change and innovation that unite the portraits. Providing many very diverse portraits, Revisiting Museums of Influence captures the immense capacity of the museum to respond to changing societal needs. As a result, the book will be essential reading for students of museology and museum professionals around the world in shaping the museums they wish to create. Scholars and students of art history, archaeology, ethnography, anthropology, cultural and visual studies, architecture, memory studies and history will also find much to interest them.

This text examines the intriguing and popular phenomenon of living history. Exploring the past through realistic recreation has become more and more familiar to visitors of museums and historical sites. It is also used as an educational approach.

Living History Museums: Undoing History Through Performance examines the performance techniques of Living History Museums, cultural institutions that merge historical exhibits with costumed live performance. Institutions such as Plimoth Plantation and Colonial Williamsburg are analyzed from a theatrical perspective, offering a new genealogy of living museum performance.