The table Identity, Language and Museum is hosted by Dr. des. Britta Hochkirchen (Universität Bielefeld) and Dr. Nabila Oulebsir (University of Poitiers).
Britta Hochkirchen says that language and literature are both means to gain specific access to the world and to communicate our personal experience including our knowledge and our feelings. But how can these fluid processes be experienced through a museum presentation without fixing the meaning in the act of displaying them? Language, literature and museums are all closely connected with the idea of national identity. In contrast, concepts of intertextuality, as well understanding the different contexts and ways in which collections have been put together in the past, provide an approach to a multiperspective, multilayered, and ultimately unbiased way of dealing with literature and museum objects instead of presenting one dominant meaning at one time. But can literature be displayed without showing manuscripts or books; how can we experience (immaterial) intertextuality in a museum context?