What defines the ambiguous distinction between a national and a world citizen, and how do institutions such as art museums influence the shifting interplay between local and global identity?

These concepts of politics, art, citizenship, and culture converged at the Kennedy School on February 16 in a discussion entitled “Representing Americanness?: Museums, the Nation, and the Globe.” Presented by The Hauser Center for Nonprofit Organizations, the Office for the Arts at Harvard, and the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs, the event’s speakers examined the role that museums play in bridging the gap between domestic and international concerns.

Experts assembled from across the country to form a mosaic of perspectives and opinions. Speaking during the event were Elliot B. Davis of Boston’s Museum of Fine Arts (MFA), Kathleen A. Foster of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and Timothy A. Burgard of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco. Each participant presented a separate statement, delving into a particular aspect of the afternoon’s themes before briefly convening as a panel for a question-and-answer session.

Davis took the opportunity to speak about a significant new addition to the MFA emerging from its recent renovation: a new American Wing, which is set to open in late 2010. This new effort will showcase works from North, Central, and South America in a chronological manner to evoke a sense of exploration and engagement in its visitors. “However you explore this wing, we do hope you will find something of great interest to you,” Davis said.

Meanwhile, Foster continued the discussion by exploring the role that museums played in fostering community, citing evidence from her hometown of Philadelphia. She illustrated art’s potential to unify by recounting an instance in which the inhabitants of Philadelphia joined together to prevent an outside collector from purchasing Thomas Eakin’s painting “The Gross Clinic”—which holds cultural and historical significance for their city—from the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

“Philadelphians recognized that there was something special about their own history,” she said. “The power of the community to act together was affirmed.”

According to Foster, art institutions are fundamentally linked to local identity. “There really is no such thing as a universal museum. I think every museum from small to large is really a local institution,” she said. Broadening the scope of the discussion, Burgard presented a more critical and incisive assessment. He condemned what he saw as a “protracted and self conscious attempt to fix a uniform American cultural identity” within museums.

Burgard argued that “we might question the motivation, validity and relevance of [this attempt] in an era of increasingly complex cultures and conflicts. Indeed, once outside the confines of the customs line at an airport, the perception of a dichotomy between American and non-American or even un-American validates assumptions that it instead ought to challenge.”

Moreover, he criticized the homogenous image of the United States and the traditional projection of a national culture. Yet he qualified that position with a vision of a future in which museums will cultivate more meaningful interactions with the international sphere.

“Museums could play an important role fostering at once national and international citizens, especially since only one quarter of Americans own a passport whereas one third of Americans visit an art museum every year,” Burgard said.

Ultimately, the speakers had more in common than their obligatory quips about Tuesday’s less-than-stellar weather—each recognized the art museum’s ability to represent what it means to be an American. Closing remarks by Ivan Gaskell, a curator at Harvard’s Fogg Art Museum and a senior lecturer on History, left the audience with a series of dramatic and tantalizing questions.

“Do we want our museums to foster the critical faculties appropriate for citizenship, or do we want them to foster docility?” Gaskell asked. “Which is the better safeguard of order and liberty?”

—Staff writer Jenya O. Godina can be reached at godina@college.harvard.edu.