An Analysis Of Tony Bennett’s Museum Studies

Tony Bennett is a leading character in contemporary western cultural studies, and afamous Marxism critic on theory of literature and art. He is also well-known for hisresearch in cultural policies and mechanism. Bennett’s research on museum constitutesan important part of his mechanism studies, which is closely related to his culturalstudies and cultural policy studies. This thesis centers on analyzing Bennett’s museumstudies, to understand the mechanism of museum and politics discourse. Thegovernmentality theory is applied to analyze the complex relations between knowledgeand power in museum, and the relations between museum and the public. Besides, fromthe perspectives of memory and narrative, analysis is given to understand Bennett’sresearch on evolutionary museums of ethnic narrative and colonial governance. Inaddition, it gives an evaluation on the heritage of Bennett’s museum studies. The studyis carried out from the following aspects:The Introduction is mainly on the academic background of Tony Bennett, histheoretical routing. Then it analyzes the present research conditions of Bennett, and themeaning and scope of the research on the theme of Bennett’s museum studies.Chapter one is to form a brief understanding of Bennett’s museum studies. First, itdefines the notion of museum, and analyzes the development routing of it. Then itdiscussed the basis and paradigm of Bennett’s museum studies. Discussion is given tothe relation of museum and cultural studies.Chapter two based on the relations between culture and governance to analysisBennett’s museum studies. First, from the perspective of museum as a culture institution,it divides the museum into different categories of collection, architecture, exhibition andrepresentation according to its basic dimensionalities on the mechanism of museum.Second, from the perspective of governmentality, a Foucauldian approach is taken toexplore the relations between museum and the practices of government. Third, analysisis given to the relations between museum and the public, how museum functions as acivic laboratory on popular schooling. Fourth, based on the previous discussion, itfurther considered Bennett’s concept of museum politics. Chapter three illustrates Bennett’s study on the evolutionary museum from theperspectives of memory and narrative, to understand the function of evolutionarymuseum to recall the past and its role in colonial governance. First, it takes museum asmemory machine to analyze the memory function of museum and the memory practices,how museum served as the incubators for new forms of knowledge. Second, from thedimensions of ethnic narrative and colonial governance, especially on the colonialhistory of Australia, it expounds on Bennett’s research on the governance practices ofevolutionary museum. Lastly, it analyzes how museum is mobilized in new ethnicnarrative to make history.In the conclusion, it reflects on Bennett’s museum studies, of its enlightenments tocontemporary museum studies, to expound on the new museum idea and the challengesthat posed to museum in the new era. Then, it comments on Bennett’s methodologiesand characteristics on museum studies, to form a critical analysis of the significance ofBennett’s museum studies and its shortcomings. Finally, a summary is given toretrospect the above mentioned chapters, further demonstrate the aspects of Bennett’spragmatic studies on museum mechanisms and politics, and my expectation for thefuture work.