Consequential Museum Spaces: Representing African American History and Culture

By Bettina Messias Carbonell

Book Overview

In Consequential Museum Spaces: Representing African American History and Culture, Bettina Messias Carbonell examines how African American history and culture is--and historically has been--represented in culturally specific and mainstream museums. Carbonell argues that African American museums provide a corrective history that is both argumentative and pragmatic: these museums educate and enlighten, and they seek to effect change. Themes examined here include settlement narratives; key movements and individuals in political, social, and military history; the treatment of slavery includingthe African, transatlantic, and American slave trade and the long history of slavery as an institution in the United States; the status of Africa--the continent and individual countries and regions--as a source of origins and traditions and a destination for reconnection with the past; and activism and human rights. Carbonell considers this museum-based work in the context of relevant historical (written) texts and in the context of contemporary theories involving memory and history, corrective history, intergenerational trauma, human rights, and historical consciousness.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1666919543
• ISBN13: 9781666919547
• Release Date: March 2023
• Publisher: Lexington Books
• Length: 222 Pages
• Weight: 1.09 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 6.0" x 9.0"