Thread by @ProfDanHicks

Is the idea of the "Universal Museum":

a) A genuine concept originating with the Encyclopédistes, or
b) The cynical invention of a gang of Museum Directors worried about repatriation & the status of their institutions as legacies of western imperialism.

Asking for a friend.

(I'm just catching up with Neil MacGregor's account of "Welterbe und Besitz" in Der Tagesspiegel, where he is stretching the 'universal museum' notion to new limits)
tagesspiegel.de/kultur/neil-ma…

Poll!
Is the concept of the "Universal Museum" a genuine 18th-century idea, or a spurious 21st-century invention?

You can read the 2002 Declaration on the Importance and Value of Universal Museums here: archives.icom.museum/pdf/E_news2004…

...and you can read a counter-argument by @IJKaplan here: artsy.net/article/artsy-…

Insofar as the concept might be an early 21st-century invention, a key moment is clearly Kim Sloan’s book “Enlightenment” (British Museum 2003), published with the opening of the BM’s new Enlightenment gallery

There are remarkably few uses of the term "universal museum" before the C21. Even this usage from 1960 is talking about a cross-disciplinary institution rather than a collection of global or cross-cultural scope onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.111…

What is your view on this, @UniversalMuseum?

Just received a long, erudite, generous, thought-provoking email from a doctoral researcher at École Pratique des Hautes Études from this thread.
The Twitter community is amazing sometimes.
Thank you @JoSacrobosco—do come to my lecture about this at the Quai Branly if you can!

Thank you to everyone who's contributed to the thread. It's been a really fascinating discussion.
Now to find out the results of the poll (in 30 mins or so)!