Bullet hole constellations: Berlin's Neues Museum, a case study in cultural memory

A new approach to cultural memory, emphasizing its use and transformation over mere remembrance, is embodied in Berlin's Neues Museum. This study challenges conventional trauma-focused narratives by analyzing the museum's architectural and curatorial framing, which promotes fragmentary wholeness and long historical continuity. Unlike the Jewish Museum, which prioritizes traumatic memory, the Neues Museum facilitates civic engagement through a phenomenological approach to history. The research method involves case studies of three Berlin museums, examining their practices, narratives, and critical contexts. This perspective aligns with contemporary discourse on modernism and cultural memory studies, offering a tool for analyzing how societies appropriate and transform their past.

Dolgoy, R. C. (2014). Bullet hole constellations: Berlin's Neues Museum, a case study in cultural memory [University of Oxford]. https://doi.org/10.5287/ORA-J1MD2ORBX