ABSTRACT
Since 1990 both Japan and Korea have experienced commemoration booms, in which the number of private and public memorial museums and monuments has tripled. These institutions provide narratives of each nation’s recent past and articulate the ideals of nation and citizenship. They compose tales to construct tradition, revise history, and reinterpret the past in order for the nation to remain relevant in public and private life. Like writing history, the museum collects and assembles fragments and carefully recontextualizes them into a particular narrative. Precisely because of its role in institutionalizing social norms, the museum becomes a crucial apparatus for the production of national identity. It shapes the manner in which the nation creates its past, imagines its boundaries, and constitutes its citizenship.
