Museums, Disasters, and Resilience: The Presbytère's Living with Hurricanes—Katrina and Beyond Exhibit

<p>This research project focuses on the entanglement of cultural heritage, museums, disasters, and resilience. Using The Presbytère museum's exhibit, <em>Living with Hurricanes: Katrina and Beyond</em> as a case study, I critically examined <em>who</em> is represented in the exhibit and how, what roles museum professionals and New Orleans community members held in the exhibit construction, and visitors' insight on the exhibit content. I argue that the promotion of New Orleans' culture and recovery post-Katrina throughout the exhibit has promoted the overall image of New Orleans and her residents as resilient. Framed by a variety of academic fields, this research contributes to a growing body of knowledge and interdisciplinary literature on disaster mitigation, the importance of culture to recovery, the benefits of and restrictions to incorporating the New Museology into common museological practice, as well as the changing functions and purposes of museums in the new millennia.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Masters Thesis

Year dc:date.available

2016

Author dc:creator

• Hagan, Molly

Contributors dc:contributor

• Richard Clemmer-Smith, Ph.D.
• Esteban Gomez
• Maik Nwosu

• Anthropology
• Disasters
• Katrina
• Museum
• New Orleans
• Resilience
• Museum Studies

Statement dc:rights

• <p>Copyright is held by the author. User is responsible for all copyright compliance.</p>

Language dc:language

en

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.du.edu/etd/1223

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.du.edu:etd-2223