ABSTRACT
The task of this chapter is to introduce the key concepts of suspense and narrative. It explains why research, if at all, has so far addressed mainly dramatic suspense. It broadens the discussion towards emotions in general and why they have been explored within museum studies only hesitantly. It draws attention to value judgements about suspense that also affect the curating of exhibitions and how exciting they are. The chapter then traces the history of the narrative turn within museum studies. It advocates exploring the creative potential of storytelling and not viewing narrative exclusively as a perspective that may exclude other perspectives. To this purpose, it is necessary to precisely define the narrative qualities of the exhibition medium. Therefore, the chapter describes major characteristics of exhibitions which limit their narrative capacities. The chapter introduces cognitive film theory as the central theory the research draws on. In order to consider also emotional aspects, the book draws on screenwriting manuals; the chapter characterises this kind of literature shortly. The last section exposes the research design and explains the criteria for selecting the case examples and the reasons for the decision to conduct a thought experiment.
