The fourth conference in the series held at Linköping University 18-20 February 2008 took an explicit historical and comparative outlook dealing with some of the main questions of the NaMu program, stressing methodological issues and comparative strategies. Eight thematic sessions were introduced by seminal key-notes giving European, global and methodological feeds to the dialogue over disciplinary and national borders:

1. Comparing relationships between different forms of national museums and their related academic disciplines. To what extent were and are they part of institutions of knowledge? Do they present a coherent approach to memory politics? To what extent are there autonomous logics operating in the evolution of cultural, historical, technical, natural and art national museums?
2. Comparing the narratives told in and by museums: how do they evolve over time? What “us” and what “others” were constructed with what means? Do they differ between countries structurally?
3. Comparing the role of national museums in the overall history of their setting (relating to disciplinary, esthetical, political and economical developments. Are they forming nations, creating hegemony, arguing for change, disrupting order or integrate?

Some answers and the basis for more intelligent questions are to be found in this volume.

Contents

Keynotes

030:001
Aronsson, Peter
Comparing National Museums: Methodological Reflections
[Abstract and Fulltext]

030:002
Message, Kylie
Comparing Cultures of Citizenship and Changing Concepts of Nation and Community in the EU and USA
[Abstract and Fulltext]

Session 1: Comparing narratives

030:003
Gosselin, Viviane ; Andersson, David
Private and Public Memories of Expo 67
[Abstract and Fulltext]

030:004
Nicolescu Cristea, Gabriela
On Maps, Abused Virgins and Nations
[Abstract and Fulltext]

030:005
Sharenkova, Radostina
Propaganda in the Museum
[Abstract and Fulltext]

030:006
Insulander, Eva ; Lindstrand, Fredrik
Past and Present
[Abstract and Fulltext]

030:007
Ragazzi, Rossella
Steps Toward An Analysis of “Sápmi:
[Abstract and Fulltext]

Session 2: Comparing national transfers

030:008
Gürol, Pelin
Conflicting Visualities on Display
[Abstract and Fulltext]

Session 3: Defining the national

030:009
Sakellariadi, Anastasia
Archaeology and Museums in the Nation Building Process in Greece
[Abstract and Fulltext]

030:010
Tranta-Nikoli, Alexandra
Representing “Greek” Prehistory
[Abstract and Fulltext]

030:011
Flour, Isabelle
National Museums of Architecture
[Abstract and Fulltext]

Session 4: Comparing objects and contexts

030:012
Bäckström, Mattias
Reading the Official and the Unofficial
[Abstract and Fulltext]

030:013
Svanberg, Fredrik
Museum Narration and the Collection Machine
[Abstract and Fulltext]

Session 5: Comparing institutional formation

030:014
Aske, Aina
The Hidden Narrative of Manor Houses and Their Cultural History in Norwegian Museums
[Abstract and Fulltext]

Session 6: Comparing disciplinary traditions

030:015
Elmqvist Söderlund, Inga
The Cabinet of Naturalia of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences at the End of the 18th Century
[Abstract and Fulltext]

030:016
Siapkas, Johannes ; Sjögren, Lena
Appropriations of Antiquity
[Abstract and Fulltext]

Session 7: Comparing for development

030:017
Mavragani, Eleni
Comparing Strategic Approaches between National and Private Museums in Athens
[Abstract and Fulltext]

030:018
Tzeng, Shin-chieh
A Tale of Two Nations
[Abstract and Fulltext]

030:019
Tali, Margaret
The Processes of Contemporary Museum Constructions
[Abstract and Fulltext]

Session 8: Comparing the Other

030:020
Varutti, Marzia
Thinking through the "Other"
[Abstract and Fulltext]

030:021
Lleras, Cristina
National Museums and the Legacies of Exclusion. Issues and Challenges Around Change in the 21st Century
[Abstract and Fulltext]

030:022
Katsaridou, Iro
Institutionalizing Photography
[Abstract and Fulltext]

030:023
Silvén, Eva
Staging the Sámi
[Abstract and Fulltext]