Peggy Levitt is the Mildred Lane Kemper Chair of Sociology at
Wellesley College and a co-founder of the
Global (De)Centre. Her latest book, Transnational Social Protection: Social Welfare Across National Borders (co-authored with Erica Dobbs, Ken Sun, and Ruxandra Paul) was published by Oxford University Press in 2023. Her current book project, Move Over, Mona Lisa. Move Over, Jane Eyre: Making the World’s Universities, Museums, and Libraries More Welcoming to Everyone will be published by Stanford University Press. Peggy writes regularly about
globalization, arts and culture, immigration, and religion.
Her earlier books include Artifacts and Allegiances: How Museums Put the Nation and the World on Display (University of California Press 2015), Religion on the Edge (Oxford University Press 2012), God Needs No Passport (New Press 2007), The Transnational Studies Reader (Routledge 2007), The Changing Face of Home (Russell Sage 2002), and The Transnational Villagers (UC Press 2001).
Selected Recent Books and Publications
Books
Transnational Social Protection: Transforming Social Welfare in a World on the Move (with Erika Dobbs, Ken Sun, and Ruxandra Paul). New York and London: Oxford University Press, 2023.
Artifacts and Allegiances: How Museums Put the Nation and the World on Display. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2015.
God Needs No Passport: Immigrants and the Changing American Religious Landscape. New York: The New Press, 2007.[1]
The Transnational Villagers. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001.[2] Awarded Honorable Mention from the International Migration Section of the
American Sociological Association and Honorable Mention for the Best Book Award, New England Council on Latin American Studies. Translated and republished as De Baní a Boston: Construyendo Comunidad a través de Fronteras. Instituto Nacional de Migración de la República Dominicana (2021).
Recent Edited Collections
2020
Scale Shifting: New Insights into Global Literary Circulation (With Wiebke Sievers) Editor of special volume of Journal of World Literature.
Cultural Policies in Global South Cities (with Jérémie Molho, Anna Triandafyllidou, and Nicholas Dines.) Editor of special volume of
International Journal of Cultural Policy.
Articles
2023
“Decolonizing Decoloniality: Decentering Art History and Comparative Literature Classrooms Outside Europe and the United States" (with Ezequiel Saferstein, Rania Jaber, and Doyeon Shin), Comparative Education Review 67(2):
https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/724062
“Cultures of Cultural Globalization: How National Repertoires and Political Ideologies Affect Literary and Artistic Circulation” (with Andreja Siliunas) Cultural Sociology.https://doi.org/10.1177/17499755221147653
2022
“Producing Korean Literature for Export.” (with Bo-Seon Shim), Chinese Journal of Sociology, 9(10): 1-25
“Cuán “cosmopolita” es la formación en Literatura Comparada? El Caso de Argentina (with Ezequiel Saferstein), Latin American Research Review, 57:278-297.
“Getting From Buenos Aires to Mexico City Without Passing Through Madrid: Latin American Publishing Topographies” (with Ezequiel Saferstein). Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies, 2022.
https://doi.org/10.1080/13569325.2022.2103102
“Scale Shifting: New Insights into Global Literary Circulation: Introduction” (with Wiebke Sievers.) Journal of World Literature Vol 5(4): 467-480.
https://doi.org/10.1163/24056480-00504001
“Who’s on the Syllabus? World Literature According to the US Pedagogical Canon” (with Kelly Rutherford.) Journal of World Literature 5: 588-611.
https://doi.org/10.1163/24056480-00504009
“Explaining Variations in Scale-Shifting: The Role of Spatiality, Topography, and Infrastructure in Global Literary Fields. Poetics, available online at
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.poetic.2019.101397.
2019
“Beyond the West: Barriers to Globalizing Art History” Art History Pedagogy and Practice, Vol 4(1): 1-24.
Selected Book Chapters
2020
“Should Museums in Boston, Beirut, and Bangkok All Look Alike?” Reflections on the Global Museum Assemblage, Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, South Korea.
2019
“Words that Make Worlds.” In Ruth Erickson and Eva Respini (Eds.), When Home Won’t Let You Stay: Migration Through Contemporary Art, Boston, Mass: Institute of Contemporary Art/Yale University Press, pp. 212-219.
2018
“Creating National and Global Citizens: What Role Can Museums Play?” In Pieter Bevelander and Christina Johansson (Eds.), Museums in Times of Migration and Mobilities, Lund, Sweden: Nordic Academic Press.
“Creating Successful Diverse Cities: What Role Can Cultural Institutions Play.” In Tiziana Caponio, Peter Scholten, and Ricard Zapta Barrero (Eds.), Cities of Migration, New York and London: Routledge Press.
Opinion pieces
The Huffington Post, June 11, 2007, “Transnational Problems Need Transnational Solutions”
The Huffington Post, June 6, 2007, “Dios Ha Muerto?”
The Boston Globe, May 27, 2007, “Life, Liberty, and the Folks Back Home”
The Boston Globe, May 27, 2007, “The Global in the Local”
The Huffington Post, May 18, 2007, “Religion Isn’t One-Size-Fits-All”
Seattle Post Intelligencer, May 15, 2007, “’Us vs. them’ mentality holds us back”
The New York Times, May 6, 2007, “A Good Provider is One Who Leaves” (letter to the editor)