Listening to the nation: National identity and the rhetoric of race in the United States and South Africa

In the 1990s, audiences of public history demanded opportunities to participate in interpreting the public past, in what became known as the "culture wars." People wanted to control how their past was depicted on museum walls, and challenged the role of public historians. This dissertation explores the consequences of these heightened demands in the United States and South Africa.;Using case studies from historical museum exhibits in the United States and South Africa, the dissertation make three related arguments. One is that these disputes within the museum (and about the museum) constitute a struggle over the meaning of national identity. The second is that although the role of the museum in both shaping a shifting national identity has been openly-debated in South Africa, in the United States similar struggles over national identity are often apparent, but unacknowledged. In the United States, recognition of the political role of the museum is articulated within an ideological discourse of consensus that shapes the way that recognition is expressed. The third argument is that participants in these disputes often sought to differentiate their rhetoric of "nation" from the rhetoric of race. But, the dissertation shows, elements of the rhetoric of race cannot be untangled from the rhetoric of national identity. The two imply one another. "Race" and "nation" are words paired by museum staff and visitors in both countries in rhetoric that suggests denial of the implicit linkage of the two terms.