Mediating memory in the museum : trauma empathy nostalgia Mediating Memory in the Museum is a contribution to an emerging field of research which is situated at the interface between memory studies and museum studies. It highlights the role of museums in the proliferation of the so called memory boom as well as the influence of memory discourses on international trends in museum cultures. By looking at a range of museums in Germany Britain France and Belgium which address a diverse spectrum of topics such as migration difficult and dark heritage war slavery and the GDR Arnold de Simine outlines the paradigm shifts in exhibiting practices associated with the transformation of traditional history museums and heritage sites into spaces of memory over the past thirty years. She probes the political and ethical claims of new museums and maps the relevance of key concepts such as vicarious trauma secondary witnessing empathic unsettlement prosthetic memory and reflective nostalgia in the museum landscape