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What can we learn about nationalism by looking at a country’s cultural institutions? How do the history and culture of particular cities help explain how museums represent diversity? Artifacts and Allegiances takes us around the world to tell the compelling story of how museums today are making sense of immigration and globalization. Based on firsthand conversations with museum directors, curators, and policymakers; descriptions of current and future exhibitions; and inside stories about the famous paintings and iconic objects that define collections across the globe, this work provides a close-up view of how different kinds of institutions balance nationalism and cosmopolitanism. By comparing museums in Europe, the United States, Asia, and the Middle East, Peggy Levitt offers a fresh perspective on the role of the museum in shaping citizens. Taken together, these accounts tell the fascinating story of a sea change underway in the museum world at large.
Price: $29.95
Pages: 268
Publisher: University of California Press
Imprint: University of California Press
Publication Date:
07 July 2015
Trim Size: 10.00 X 7.00 in
ISBN: 9780520286078
Format: Paperback
"An illuminating study that will be of interest to academics and museum professionals working in the field today."
"Ambitious, well-written, and significant."
"Experimental — interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, self-critical, heterodox — approaches to art will have to be tried out if an audience for history, which is only as alive as our sense of investment in it, is not to be lost. (For a comparative look at some recent methods, I recommend Peggy Levitt’s 'Artifacts and Allegiances: How Museums Put the Nation and the World on Display,'"
— Holland Cotter
"Artifacts and Allegiances is a compelling narrative whose insight and passion is well-supported by rich and rigorous sociological analysis, ultimately offering a welcome contribution to scholars across disciplines interested in museums, global politics, and the culture of place."
"Intriguing... this well-executed analysis presents a powerful brief with its case studies."
"While Levitt’s book offers its reader a rich analysis of different reterritorializations of the global museum assemblage supported by a thorough reading of the sociocultural environment the museums are embedded in and interact with, her writing also shows a sound sensitivity for the vast complexity required to understand museums as utterly social sites constantly negotiating which society they serve (and/or create), what their place in a globalized world could be, and how to claim this place. "
"Peggy Levitt makes interesting points and sparks critical thinking about the significant link between the fields of transnational and museum studies."
"Of considerable interest to scholars, museum professionals, and others, this ambitious, well-written, and significant book belongs in large public, academic, and special libraries. Highly recommended for interdisciplinary museum and visual arts collections."
Peggy Levitt is Professor of Sociology at Wellesley College and a Senior Research Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations at Harvard University, where she codirects the Transnational Studies Initiative. In 2015, she is a Robert Schuman Fellow at the European University Institute. Her books include Books, Bodies, and Bronzes: Comparative Sites of Global Citizenship Creation, Religion on the Edge, God Needs No Passport, The Changing Face of Home: The Transnational Lives of the Second Generation, and The Transnational Villagers.
Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Bog and the Beast: The View of the Nation and the World from Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Gothenburg
2. The Legislator and the Priest: Cosmopolitan Nationalism in Boston and New York
3. Arabia and the East: How Singapore and Doha Display the Nation and the World
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
List of Plates
Image Credits
Index
Introduction
1. The Bog and the Beast: The View of the Nation and the World from Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Gothenburg
2. The Legislator and the Priest: Cosmopolitan Nationalism in Boston and New York
3. Arabia and the East: How Singapore and Doha Display the Nation and the World
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
List of Plates
Image Credits
Index