In order to extend and disrupt typical analysis of museum rhetoric focuses on ethics, identity, culture, and the museum as memory space, this volume moves toward a more embodied experience of the museum visitor, one that considers how the curator's intended arrangement of display mediates the participant's sense of not only what, but how they see, based upon the curator's intended purpose.
The contributors argue each visitor's perception will impact them based on the placement of displays, shaping the very identity and conclusions of the exhibit. By building upon the work of memorials and material rhetoric, this book argue that these previous theories do not fully account for the tensions and disruptions that exist in musicological display. Through analysis of framing devices such as exhibition place and space, design, placement, sensorial elements, and commercialism, the contributors evaluate how rhetoric offers competing narratives about the values and beliefs on display, whether they be in science, natural history, art, and popular culture exhibitions.

Understanding audience interpretation and community engagement beyond the intents of museum curators helps us understand the changing values, beliefs, and interpretations of our cultural history as they move through time. Such rhetorical interventions offer complex and engaging opportunities for disruption, revealing the tensions between intent and interpretation.