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Can museums be literary? Can literature be museal? Throughout the twentieth century and into the present, the museum has repeatedly challenged models of representation, none more so than mimesis, both as aesthetic theory and representational practice. This has been a role played by museums, both in their traditional guises as repositories of objects and — as André Malraux presciently had it — as “imaginary museums.” This course will examine the larger disruption of mimesis, and more specifically literary realism, through the particular catalyzing effects of museums. We will deal with two primary museological phenomena: first, the introduction of the “primitive other” into European modernity via ethnographic museums; second, the museological commemoration and representation of trauma, specifically of the Holocaust. Special attention will be paid to discursive, formal, and rhetorical locations of overlap between the museal and the literary, including ekphrasis, linearity, volume, and collection. Readings will include fiction, poetry, and theoretical texts, as well as secondary sources examining particular museums and exhibitions. All texts in English.