ABSTRACT

If the American presidency is a catalyst for and exemplar of the power of rhetoric, so too is the presidential museum. Indeed, the confluence of material, textual, and visual rhetoric in these constructed places of memory continues to make these sites compelling and influential. Much like its counterparts across the country, The Jimmy Carter Presidential Museum seeks to captivate visitors with an array of immersive exhibits that appeal to the visitor’s full sensorium. In this essay, I extend the concept of political scopophilia to better account for rhetoric’s impact on the visitor’s full sensorium in presidential museums. Through activating and enhancing the visitor’s scopophiliac impulses, the Carter Museum creates an illusion of intimacy in its attempt to refocus American collective memory around Carter’s post-presidential successes.

摘要

如果说美国总统任期是修辞力量的催化剂和典范，那么总统博物馆也是如此。事实上，材料、文本和视觉修辞在这些构建的记忆场所中的融合继续使这些网站引人注目并具有影响力。与全国各地的同行非常相似，吉米卡特总统博物馆旨在通过一系列沉浸式展品来吸引游客，吸引游客的全部感官。在这篇文章中，我扩展了政治窥视的概念，以更好地解释修辞对总统博物馆参观者完整感官的影响。通过激活和增强参观者的窥视冲动，卡特博物馆创造了一种亲密的错觉，试图将美国的集体记忆重新聚焦在卡特总统后的成功上。