The Touch of the Past: Remembrance, Learning, and Ethics

Vulnerability as a Key Concept in Museum Pedagogy on Difficult Matters

“…When Simon defines Difficult Knowledge as a "terrible gift", because it entails an experience of disturbance and of loss of one's normalised frames of understanding, this definition runs parallel to Silvén and Björklund's idea of Difficult Matters, but Simon situates the "terrible gift" as a pedagogical gift or legacy, because the disturbance it effects is assumed to offer a possibility for a deepened sense of responsibility for the other-which to be sure may be felt as a heavy weight on one's shoulders-but all things considered it is worth receiving (Simon 2005(Simon , 2006. The gift, then, ultimately has positive connotationsit is pedagogically productive (offers a needed change) and it is a normative good thing for everyone involved-providing "the opportunity to reconsider what it might mean to make a relation to and with the past, opening us to a reconsideration of the terms of our lives now as well as in the future" (Simon 2006, 189).…”

“…challenging history (Kidd et al 2014), difficult knowledge (Lehrer et al 2011;Simon 2005Simon , 2006Simon , 2014, hot topics (Cameron and Kelly 2010), difficult heritage (Macdonald 2009), difficult histories (Rose 2016), difficult exhibitions or difficult histories (Witcomb 2010(Witcomb , 2013 or objectification of suffering (Williams 2011). Despite the different ways of naming the issue, it is a shared assumption that these matters are normally marginalised or Vulnerability as a Key Concept in Museum Pedagogy on… 151 excluded from public life, but also that museums have an ethical responsibility for representing these matters in their exhibitions, because museums-as societal institutionsmust be representative of all kinds of experiences and events in society.…”

“…Despite the different ways of naming the issue, it is a shared assumption that these matters are normally marginalised or Vulnerability as a Key Concept in Museum Pedagogy on… 151 excluded from public life, but also that museums have an ethical responsibility for representing these matters in their exhibitions, because museums-as societal institutionsmust be representative of all kinds of experiences and events in society. It is generally assumed that such matters evoke experiences of risk, danger, loss of security, and exposure on the part of visitors-experiences which are normally seen as negative-and also challenge visitors' conceptual framework of understanding (Simon et al 2000;Simon 2005Simon , 2014Cameron and Kelly 2010;Lehrer et al 2011, Kidd et al 2014. Rather than defining Difficult Matters as a heritage to be celebrated as an established ceremonial practice, they are discussed as scare images of suffering, pain, trauma and inhumanity.…”

Formal and Non-formal Reform Efforts of History Teaching in Cyprus: Openings and Closures for Dangerous Memories and Reconciliation Pedagogies

“…However, students and teachers are not dopes answering the mandates of 'politics of memory' (Todorov 2003;Simon 2005). Instead, a sense of rupture with official historical narratives and essentialized identities may be grounded in the notion of dangerous memories, for this idea challenges assumptions that 'transmitted memories' are endlessly powerful and thus can facilitate conflict transformation processes.…”

Curating the Nation: The Politics of Recognition in a Bahamian National Museum

“…In practicing radical trust, however, this framework cannot assume full control over how individual visitors engage with (or accept) perspectives other than their own. Simon (2005) discusses a possible engagement of remembering other people's memories as visitors able to be "touched by the past" and "take other stories seriously, as matters of counsel" (p. 189). The curatorial framework should provide the opportunity for diverse publics to imagine and reflect on versions of the past other than their own.…”