AHIS 1317: Cultural Heritage in Crisis
| Course Format | Lecture 3.0 h + Seminar 0.0 h + Lab. 1.0 h |
| Credits | 3.0 |
Course Description
In recent times, objects of cultural heritage have become contested sites where power struggles play out around political, racial, religious, class, sexual, and gender issues etc. The destruction of cultural heritage has become a tool of war and cultural cleansing. It features in protests calling for social justice. It has also resulted from natural disasters and climate change. Theft of culturally significant objects has been used to profit from the oppressed, control marginalized peoples, and in some cases conduct genocide. This course makes explicit the ways in which cultural heritage can be a symbol and visual reinforcement of oppressive power and a tool of propaganda denouncing certain groups. Students explore how vandalism and destruction of objects or sites can contribute to cultural genocide. In this course, students look at cultural heritage in the context of how these power struggles operate by examining aspects of conflict, commemoration, social justice movements, cultural appropriation, vandalism, destruction, theft, and repatriation.
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