Traumatic Memories Of Discourse Construction

Different from the traditional museums aiming at protecting, maintaining, displaying, and presenting important cultural assets of human civilization, what contained in a museum of trauma would always be the traumas suffered by a nation. In the light of New Museum Theory, this thesis will do a culture study on such a special form of museums.New Museum Theory, sometimes referred to as critical museum theory or new museology, has a view no longer confined to the operational level of museum practice, but turned to the more fundamental foundation and logic of museums. Hooper-Greenhill, the representative of this theory, had put forward the concept "Post-museum" in1990s, as a new museum paradigm responding to the Post-modern episteme.This thesis will take Nanjing Massacre Memorial Hall as the main case study, put an emphasis on its visual narratives, discuss how historical discourse is constructed in a museum of trauma, and think about the possibilities of changes in museum narratives of ’war’ and ’trauma’.