The Political Economy of the Bicentennial

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This week, my group worked on finalizing our selections and curating a display for our exhibit. This required us to commit to a few themes/events and to think about how to convey those things with the materials we’ve been given. In terms of the content of our display, we chose materials that we found most representative of two broad themes: the construction of ‘modern’ buildings on the Hill (e.g., KAC) and the evolution of College policies (e.g., no smoking). In terms of the form of our display, we worked on arranging our materials in such a way that was both logical (i.e., there’s a logic to why a picture of Old K is next to a letter written by President Jordan) and aesthetically pleasing. Going into this week, we’ll continue to think about how we can make our display as ‘eye-catching’ as possible, particularly since the majority of our material consists of letters and papers.

Relevant to my group’s work this week is Autry’s (2022) paper on the political economy of memory. In the paper, Autry contends that social, economic, and institutional contexts shape the aims of various black history museums in the US. To prove this, Autry analyzes the evolution and current state of civil rights and post-civil rights era museums, showing how funding, place, and visitors all limit (or at least influence) the exhibits that comprise the museums. One part of the paper that I found particularly interesting was its discussion of the tension between displaying and suppressing difficult material (69). According to Autry, only one museum offered a “substantive treatment of civil rights era violence and brutality” (ibid.).

Although Autry is wrestling with a different set of histories than my group, her discussion of the relationship between funding and narratives and inspirational vs. oppositional scripts is related to some of the conversations that my group has had. In particular, her discussion of mainstream narratives amongst some of the museums she studied (which are shaped by funding and institutional support) is related to the thinking that my group has been doing. Perhaps like the curators at some of the better-funded museums that Autry studied, I kind of feel limited by my subservience to the College/my Professor for asking me to do this. Because I am curating something for a grade and a community I respect, I feel more inclined to make something that’s uplifting and exciting, even at the expense of it being somewhat one-dimensional (69).



References


Autry, Robyn. 2012. “The Political Economy of Memory: The Challenges of Representing National Conflict at ‘Identity-Driven’ Museums.” Theory and Society 42(1):57–80.

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