Representing Americanness:
Museums, the Nation, and the Globe

During his trip to Europe during the 2008 presidential campaign, Barack Obama told an adoring crowd of more than 200,000 gathered in Berlin's Tiergarten that he was speaking to them as a citizen of the United States and as a citizen of the world. But what does it really mean to be a global citizen? Where do the values undergirding global citizenship come from? To what extent do national artistic and cultural institutions which were, in part, established to create national publics see themselves as creating global publics too?  In this panel, curators from three of the country's most prominent museums will debate the role of cultural institutions in representing the nation and the world.

Panelists:
 
Elliot Bostwick Davis
John Moors Cabot Chair, Art of the Americas
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
 
Timothy Anglin Burgard
The Ednah Root Curator of American Art and Curator-in-Charge,
American Art Department, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco
 
Kathleen A. Foster
The Robert L. McNeil, Jr., Senior Curator of American Art and Director,
Center for American Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art
 
Discussant:

Ivan Gaskell
Margaret S. Winthrop Curator, Fogg Art Museum; and
Senior Lecturer on History, Harvard University
 
Moderator:
 
Peggy Levitt
Professor, Department of Sociology, Wellesley College
Co-Director, Transnational Studies Initiative, Harvard University
 
This event is co-sponsored by: the Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, and the Office for the Arts at Harvard.
 
For further information visit our website:
http://www.hks.harvard.edu/hauser/engage/artsculturemedia/representing-americanness/
or contact: Deepak Lamba-Nieves, Project Manager, Transnational Studies Initiative(deepakln@mit.edu)

Friday - Sunday, May 21 -23, 2010
Forum des Images, Forum Des Halles, 2, rue du Cinéma, 75001 Paris
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