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"I Want To Take You Higher": Popular Music Museums As Social Fields For Legitimizing Popular Music Memories, Olivia Paige Zinn
"I Want To Take You Higher": Popular Music Museums As Social Fields For Legitimizing Popular Music Memories, Olivia Paige Zinn
Senior Projects Spring 2023
This paper is an ethnographic and interview-based study of popular music museums in the United States. I observed that curatorial practices in pop music museums aligned with two major goals -- education and entertainment. These curatorial practices worked within the goals of the social field of museums as well as responded to the legacy of cultural hierarchy. I ultimately find that popular music museums are sites for legitimizing Americans' memories of and taste for popular music, rather than merely sites of music history education or entertainment.