???? UNDER THE LAMPLIGHT-

Should museums as we know them today be canceled? Museums have recently come under fire for their imperial and colonial biases as well as their refusal to return foreign artifacts. In his new book, The Museum of Other People, visiting anthropology professor at the London School of Economics, Adam Kuper looks back at museums’ heyday in the Western world in the second half of the 19th century, when colonialism was thriving across Africa and Oceania. The purpose of museums at the time was to display “primitive” objects from various exotic locations to demonstrate how far Western civilization had progressed. He traces the evolution of these “museums of other people,” as he calls them, from Copenhagen to Washington, DC, but warns that in today’s drastically different climate, they may be on the verge of extinction. The aftermath of World War II saw a period of decolonization during which museums started to lose popularity. More recently, discussions about cultural appropriation and movements like Black Lives Matter have raised serious questions about the future of such institutions. Kuper outlines some of the changes that museums must make in order to adapt and survive.