ABSTRACT

This introduction presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book suggests that the nationalist paradigm adopted by the founders of the Louvre made different cultural formations apparently commensurable with one another in museological representation and display, while at the same time maintaining implicit hierarchies of aesthetic and ethical value and cognitive, cultural, and technological advancement. It addresses the performative and dramaturgical dimensions of these modes of representation. The book provides a good summary of developments since the 1960s in trying to meet the challenges of cultural diversity by museums in various parts of the world, and cites a number of significant changes in museological ideology and practice. It charts the connections between changes in museum policies and practices and the civil rights movement in the US in the late 1960s and early 1970s.