Emotions and critical thinking at a dark heritage site: investigating visitors’ reactions to a First World War museum in Slovenia

ABSTRACT

This paper explores the connection between memory study theories (antagonistic, cosmopolitan, and agonistic) and emotions in a dark heritage site. It does so by investigating Italian and Slovene visitors’ emotional reactions to the permanent exhibition of the Kobarid Museum. The museum is located in a dark heritage site in Slovenia that was the epicenter of a series of bloody conflicts during the First World War. Relying on a cosmopolitan narrative, the museum promotes a clear antiwar message, aiming to elicit emotional responses such as empathy and compassion for the victims to connect with visitors. However, our analysis brings to light antagonistic emotions among Italian and Slovene visitors, raising important issues concerning the role of emotions and multiperspectivity in dark heritage sites. Hence, we discuss how these emotions could instead promote critical thinking, self-reflection, and cross-national dialogue.

KEYWORDS:

• Dark heritage
• emotion
• war
• museum
• memory
• empathy

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on previous drafts. They also wish to thank Dr. Marianna Deganutti who, as co-researcher on the UNREST project, carried out work on the Kobarid museum and was co-responsible (together with Prof. Anna Bull), for the interviews with the museum curators.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 ‘Walk of Peace in the Soča Region Foundation’, the Pot Miru Foundation, www.100letprve.si/en/po_miru/about_fundation.

Additional information

Funding

This research was part of a wider EU-funded project entitled Unsettling Remembering and Social Cohesion in Transnational Europe-UNREST [H2020-EU3.6 (Project ID 693523)]. Daniela De Angeli’s research received further funding from CAMERA, the RCUK Centre for the Analysis of Motion, Entertainment Research and Applications (EP/M023281/1).

Notes on contributors

Anna Cento Bull

Anna Cento Bull is Professor of Italian History and Politics at the University of Bath, UK. She has examined the legacy of 1960s-1970s Italian terrorism, exploring issues related to reconciliation, memory, truth and justice and comparing the views of victims, perpetrators and politicians close to the right. More recently, she has worked on difficult heritage and has been a PI in a Horizon 2020 project entitled Unsettling Remembering and Social Cohesion in Transnational Europe (http://www.unrest.eu/). Publications include Ending Terrorism in Italy, Abingdon and New York 2013 (with P. Cooke), ‘On Agonistic Memory’ (with H L. Hansen, Memory Studies, 2016, 9: 4, 390–404) and ‘War Museums as Agonistic Spaces: Possibilities, Opportunities and Constraints’ (with H.L. Hansen, W. Kansteiner and N. Parish, International Journal of Heritage Studies, 28 October 2018).

Daniela De Angeli

Daniela De Angeli is a postdoctoral researcher in human computer interaction, cultural heritage, games and memory studies at the University of Bath. She has worked as a web, graphic and interaction designer with museums in the USA and Europe. She has a Masters degree in Technology Enhanced Communication for Cultural Heritage from the University of Lugano, Switzerland and a second Masters degree in Media Arts and Computer Science from New Mexico Highlands University, USA. During her doctorate at the Centre for Digital Entertainment at the University of Bath in UK, she explored how authenticity and entertainment can coexist in contemporary museums through game creation and game play. She is currently investigating the use of games to stimulate dialogue and social reflection in difficult heritage sites. Personal website: www.danieladeangeli.com