The performance of heritage takes place in prestigious institutions such as museums and archives, in officially sanctioned spaces such as jubilees and public monuments, but also in more mundane, ephemeral and banal cultural practices, such as naming of phenomena, viewing exhibitions or walking in the countryside. This volume examines the performance of Nordic heritage and the shaping of the very idea of Norden in diverse contexts in North America, the Baltic and the Nordic countries and ex...

National Museums is the first book to explore the national museum as a cultural institution in a range of contrasting national contexts. Composed of new studies of countries that rarely make a showing in the English-language studies of museums, this book reveals how these national museums have been used to create a sense of national self, place the nation in the arts, deal with the consequences of political change, remake difficult pasts, and confront those issues of nationalism, ...

Europe’s national museums have since their creation been at the centre of on-going nation making processes. National museums negotiate conflicts and contradictions and entrain the community sufficiently to obtain the support of scientists and art connoisseurs, citizens and taxpayers, policy makers, domestic and foreign visitors alike. National Museums and Nation-building in Europe 1750-2010 assess the national museum as a manifestation of cultural and political desires, rather tha...

Global Mobilities illustrates the significant engagement of museums and archives with populations that have experienced forced or willing migration: emigrants, exiles, refugees, asylum seekers, and others. The volume explores the role of public institutions in the politics of integration and cultural diversity, analyzing their efforts to further the inclusion of racial and ethnic minority populations. Emphasizing the importance of cross-cultural knowledge and exchange, global case...

Since the late nineteenth century, museums have been cited as tools of imperialism and colonialism, as strongholds of patriarchalism, masculinism, homophobia and xenophobia, and accused both of elitism and commercialism. But, could the museum absorb and benefit from its critique, turning into a critical museum, into the site of resistance rather than ritual? This book looks at the ways in which the museum could use its collections, its cultural authority, its auratic space and resources to...

This book sheds new light on the cinema and modernity debate by confronting established theories on the role of the modern cinematic experience with new empirical work on the history of the social experience of cinema-going, film audiences and film exhibition.The book provides a wide range of research methodologies and perspectives on these matters, including:the use of oral history methodsquestionnairesdiariesaudience lettersas...

The idea that the heritage of nature is fundamentally cultural is provocative to many, but it is becoming increasingly accepted in the context of heritage preservation. It is argued here that a person’s perspective on natural vs. cultural heritage as a contested patrimony is, to some extent, governed by one’s intellectual and geographical position. In discourses influenced by the natural sciences culture is a heritage of nature, whereas in those deriving from the humanities and social scie...

The built environment of former socialist countries is often deemed uniform and drab, an apt reflection of a repressive regime. Building the State peeks behind the grey façade to reveal a colourful struggle over competing meanings of the nation, Europe, modernity and the past in a divided continent.Examining how social change is closely intertwined with transformations of the built environment, this volume focuses on the relationship between architecture and state politics...

Often labeled "neo-Nazis" or "right-wing extremists," radical nationalists in the Nordic countries have always relied on music to voice their opposition to immigration and multiculturalism. These actors shook political establishments throughout Sweden, Denmark, and Norway during the 1980s and 1990s by rallying around white power music and skinhead subculture. But though nationalists once embraced a reputation for crude chauvinism, they are now seeking to reinvent themselves as upstanding a...

Vad betyder det att vara europé? En grupp europeiska akademiker ombads att använda sina egna personliga perspektiv för att diskutera det komplexa ämnet nationell identitet.Detta är speciellt intressant med tanke på att Europa i framtiden kommer att bli än mer integrerat, och att samarbete över gränserna kommer än mer ingå i den sociala och politiska utvecklingen. Författarna representerar en mångfald av de varierande kulturella och etniska grupper som bildar det europeiska folket.

In 2020 Sweden's response to COVID-19 drew renewed attention to the Nordic nation in a way that put the finger on a seeming paradox. Long celebrated for its commitment to social solidarity, Sweden suddenly emerged as the last country in the West to resist lockdown while defending individual rights and responsibilities. To explain these contradictions, Henrik Berggren and Lars Trägårdh argue that the long-standing view of Sweden's welfare state as the result of socialist collectivism is fla...

From the colourful abstraction of the Rietveld chair to the dry wit of the ‘milkbottle lamp’ by design cooperative Droog, modern design in the Netherlands has always been a hotbed of experimentation. Dutch designers have consistently pushed to the limits anything from posters to postage-stamps, home furnishings to street signage, ceramics to city airports. Indeed, in the last decade or so, Dutch design has become a worldwide phenomenon, almost a brand in itself, with regular publications i...