Museums, scholarly enterprise and global assemblages: a response to ‘Artifacts and allegiances: how museums put the nation and the world on display’

ABSTRACT

This discussion of ‘Artifacts and Allegiances: how museums put the nation and the world on display’ by Peggy Levitt shows the efficacy of the cosmopolitan–national continuum as an analysis of the conditions of museums in a globalized world. It suggests that nationalism and cosmopolitanism, whilst posed as alternatives, are not seriously in tension within the liberal global museum. It finds that the book is useful in proposing the museum as a complex cultural assemblage, but that the lack of theoretical integration into the body of the narrative limits the scope for examination of what is entailed. The review suggests that a new progressive discourse of the museum of the 21st century would need to consider and include the participation and engagement of the museum’s audiences, both present and online.

KEYWORDS:

• Museums
• cosmopolitanism
• nation
• assemblage
• theory
• representation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.