Cultural Heritage: new insights
Friday 12 October 1.30pm in Wentworth W/222
Programme
Cultural Heritage Workshop Programme (PDF 
, 181kb)
Speakers
Nathalie Heinich
Nathalie Heinich is Director of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (National Center for Scientific Research). Author of – among others – The Glory of Van Gogh: An Anthropology of Admiration (Princeton University Press, 1997), Le Triple jeu de l’art contemporain (Minuit, 1998), La Sociologie de l’art (La Découverte-Repères, 2001), Pourquoi Bourdieu (Gallimard, 2007), La Fabrique du patrimoine (Maison des Sciences de l’Homme, 2009)
Abstract: The Making of Cultural Heritage’ How is cultural heritage made? How does an object become part of a national cultural heritage? The French sociologist Nathalie Heinich unravels the different values and registers of values behind the transformation into heritage in order to better understand the mission of those in charge of this delicate task.
Sharon Macdonald
Sharon Macdonald is the Anniversary Professor of Cultural Anthropology and Director of the York European Centre for Cultural Exploration, University of York. Author of Difficult Heritage. Negotiating the Nazi Past in Nuremberg and Beyond (Routledge, 2009) and Memorylands. Heritage and Identity in Europe Today (Routledge, 2013)
Abstract: Making and re-making Nazi heritage in Germany. Heritage regulations and listing may have unanticipated as well as intended consequences; and the making of cultural heritage needs to be understood as an ongoing and negotiated process. This presentation will examine this in the case of Nazi buildings in Germany, specifically those of the former Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg. In the 1970s, under new Bavarian ‘historical preservation’ legislation, which was not designed to include Nazi buildings, the buildings of the rally grounds complex and various other ‘monumental’ Nazi buildings were ‘automatically’ listed as they met certain criteria. This was, however, highly controversial and embedded in longstanding political battles between Nuremberg and Munich, and between different factions within civic culture. Its ramifications – including questions of restoration – continued since in the ongoing remaking, or reassembling, of heritage – and of the future.
Prof Sian Jones
Prof Sian Jones is Professor of Archaeology, University of Manchester, Author of The Archaeology of Ethnicity (Sahoi Pyoungnon Publishing Group, 2008), Early Medieval Sculpture and the Production of Meaning, Value and Place (Historic Scotland, 2004), and The Archaeology of Ethnicity: Constructing identities in past and present (Routledge, 1997). Co-author of A Fragmented Masterpiece (Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, 2008).
Abstract: Crafting authenticity in heritage conservation. How is the authenticity of historic buildings and monuments produced and negotiated in the context of heritage conservation? Focusing on the traditional craft practices of stonemasons, Sian Jones traces out their relations to the broader nexus of experts responsible for conserving Glasgow Cathedral. She argues that authenticity is a distributed property of distinct forms of expert practice as they intersect with one another, and, crucially, with the material conditions of specific heritage sites. In the context of conservation practice, authenticity is neither a subjective, discursive construction, nor a latent property of historic monuments waiting to be preserved. Rather it is a property that emerges through specific interactions between people and things.
Chair
Laurie Hanquinet, Department of Sociology, University of York