In the Shadow of the Queen: On UNESCO’S Universal History, the Women of the Petit Trianon, and Tourist Meaning-Making
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Mandy Paige-Lovingood
Abstract
Upon the designation of Versailles as a World Heritage Site, UNESCO renamed the Petit Trianon the Domaine de Marie-Antoinette (Estate of Marie-Antoinette). Subsequent tourist materials, such as travel guides and website directories, reiterated this redesignation and retell the site’s historical past through the life of Marie-Antoinette, thereby casting Madame de Pompadour and the Comtesse du Barry to the periphery. This essay analyzes visitor Instagram photos and Tripadvisor reviews to understand how UNESCO’s uniting of the queen’s memory with the Petit Trianon affects tourist interpretation and meaning making. It considers the consequences of the universalization of a single narrative to recount a multi-actor history and highlights the continued erasure of Madame de Pompadour and Comtesse du Barry taking place in visitors’ retelling of the Petit Trianon’s past.
© 2021 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
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- Frontmatter
- Special section on: “Towards a Democratization of History? Public History and Europe’s ‘Difficult’ Pasts of the 20th Century”
- Introduction: Understanding Diverse Uses of Painful Pasts. A Plea for Conscious Normativity
- The Haunting Past of Colonialism in Belgium the Death of Patrice Lumumba in Public Memory
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- Representing the Other and the Democratization of History. Polish Reenactors in Nazi Uniforms
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- In the Shadow of the Queen: On UNESCO’S Universal History, the Women of the Petit Trianon, and Tourist Meaning-Making
- IFPH 10th Anniversary
- Locally Grounded Practices, Global Conversations
- Public History in
- Perspectives on Public History in Colombia
Articles in the same Issue
- Frontmatter
- Special section on: “Towards a Democratization of History? Public History and Europe’s ‘Difficult’ Pasts of the 20th Century”
- Introduction: Understanding Diverse Uses of Painful Pasts. A Plea for Conscious Normativity
- The Haunting Past of Colonialism in Belgium the Death of Patrice Lumumba in Public Memory
- Opportunities and Challenges in Memory Activism: The Case of the Mittenwald Protest Campaign (2002–2009)
- Representing the Other and the Democratization of History. Polish Reenactors in Nazi Uniforms
- Article
- In the Shadow of the Queen: On UNESCO’S Universal History, the Women of the Petit Trianon, and Tourist Meaning-Making
- IFPH 10th Anniversary
- Locally Grounded Practices, Global Conversations
- Public History in
- Perspectives on Public History in Colombia
