Livre - Artifacts and allegiances

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. 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. “Unearths a story of quiet, nearly invisible, heroism as curators mount exhibitions to encourage us to appreciate cosmopolitan values and engage with cultural difference. This is a beautifully researched and crafted book written by one of the most imaginative sociologists I know.″ ROBIN COHEN, University of Oxford “A book of travel stories, a snapshot of emergent cosmopolitan art worlds, and one of the best illustrations of how a theoretically rich, multi-sited global ethnography is possible without a trace of the jargon and pontification found in so much global social theory. ″ ADRIAN FAVELL, Sciences Po, Paris “Vital for understanding cosmopolitan culture and more local contexts today.″ CRAIG CALHOUN, Director, London School of Economics and political Science “Levitt shows how the turnstile of the self-perceived interior and exterior of the nation, or the cosmopolitan-nationalism continuum, is located at the very heart of museums.″ KWOK KIAN CHOW, National Gallery Singapore “A fascinating story about the various strategies and trajectories museums are taking locally in their struggle for cultural relevance in the twenty-first century″ THOMAS FILLITZ, University of Vienna 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.