ABSTRACT
This introductory chapter characterizes the strong emotional practice in the state museums in Turkey that are the focus of this study. The chapter introduces key questions for the book: what it means for museums to charge the past with particular political agendas through spectacular, emotive representations; how this concerns social contests over past, present, and future that pervade both the spaces of people’s lives and high-level geopolitical questions; and how and why people visit the museums, make sense of what they find there, and respond emotionally. The book is presented as a resource for scholars wishing to understand the interrelations between museums, memory, social, and state politics and emotion through mixed-methods approach.
