Critical Heritage Studies

Description

Through knowledge and understanding, students will be able to: • Mentally map the vastness and complexity of the field of cultural heritage • Deconstruct cultural heritage as a concept • Relate to cultural heritage academically versus affectively in multiple contexts • Question the relation between cultural heritage and globalization • Debate about the concept of world heritage versus national heritage • Argue contested heritage from different perspectives Through intellectual skills, students will be able to: • Think beyond typical heritage perceptions • Contemplate ideas about cultural heritage without fully accepting them, or fully rejecting them • Re-define culture heritage at the end of the course • Formulate academic opinions on addressing alternative narratives of heritage • Envision the future of cultural heritage theoretically, methodologically and practically Through professional and practical skills, students will be able to: • Formulate academic solid opinions on cultural heritage • Develop skills in oral and textual articulation of the complex matters of cultural heritage Through general and transferable skills, students will be able to: • Have solid skills of argumentation and debate • Develop a clear image of social and cultural theories • Speak publicly • Write more theoretically and analytically

Program

Egyptian Archaeology

Objectives

• This course is a seminar aiming at raising the critical perceptions of students of cultural heritage on epistemological and practical approaches to the major questions of cultural heritage in the 21st Century. The focus of this course is to investigate cultural heritage intellectually, by theorizing culture heritage as a construct through readings, reflections, and discussions. The course will thoroughly examine how wide, and complex is cultural heritage and how it interacts with the diverse theories and methodological approaches. Themes of focus will be memory, negative memory, authenticity, space, knowledge, identity, ideology, explored in background themes as archaeology, social theory, ethics, legislation, and anthropology all in a global versus national perspectives, eurocentrism versus indigenous archaeology, tangible versus intangible, and colonialism versus post-colonialism.