A Programme of Absolute Disorder

Proposes a thoroughgoing decolonisation of the institution of the museum, with a focus on the Louvre

'A complete overhaul of the Western museum tradition' - Publishers WeeklyThe Western museum is a battleground - a terrain of ideological, political and economic contestation. Almost everyone today wants to rethink the museum, but how many have the audacity to question the idea of the universal museum itself?In A Programme of Absolute Disorder, Francoise Verges puts the museum in its place. Exploring the Louvre's history, she uncovers the context in which the universal museum emerged: as a product of colonialism, and of Europe's self-appointed claim to be the guardian of global heritage.Verges outlines a radical horizon: to truly decolonize the museum is to implement a 'programme of absolute disorder', inventing other ways of apprehending the human and non-human world that nourish collective creativity and bring justice and dignity to the dispossessed.

Autorentext

Françoise Vergès is a political scientist, activist, historian, film writer, and public educator. She is the author of A Decolonial Feminism, A Feminist History of Violence and A Programme of Absolute Disorder. She is also a senior research fellow at the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Racism and Racialisation, University College London. She lives in Paris.

Paul Gilroy is the founding Director of the Sarah Parker Remond Centre for the Study of Race and Racism at University College London. He is a renowned sociologist, historian and cultural theorist recognised for his pioneering work on race, Black diaspora and postcolonial culture. He is the author of The Black Atlantic, amongst other classics.

Melissa Thackway is an independent researcher and translator. She lectures in African Cinema at Sciences-Po and INALCO in Paris. Her recent translations include A Feminist Theory of Violence by Françoise Vergès, Contemporary African Cinema by Olivier Barlet, Tropical Dream Palaces: Cinema-Going in Colonial West Africa by Odile Goerg and African Diasporic Cinema: Aesthetics of Reconstruction by Daniela Ricci.

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'A complete overhaul of the Western museum tradition' - Publishers Weekly

'The Western museum is a strange place... a cemetery of anonymous dead without sepulchres'

In A Programme of Absolute Disorder, Françoise Vergès strips away the veneer of the universal Western museum to reveal its origins as a warehouse for the spoils of colonial warfare.

By exploring the history of the Louvre, and following the radical tradition of Frantz Fanon, she argues that the modern institution cannot just be fixed with a more diverse board or by finding new ways to display the art.

Instead, she demands a 'post-museum': a space that rejects the financialization of art, acknowledges the bloody history of its collections, and prioritises the labour and dignity of those who clean, guard and inhabit its halls.