Fall 2008
Heritage: History and the Past Today
New College of Florida
Professor Uzi Baram
Professor’s Office: College Hall 205
Office Hours: Monday 11-12, Tuesday 1-2 & drop-ins are welcomed anytime I’m in my office, but time might be limited
Email: Baram@ncf.edu
Telephone: 487-4217
Class Meets: Monday and Thursday 2-3:20 pm in the Anthro Lab
Course webpage: http://faculty.ncf.edu/baram/HeritageCourse.htm
Catalogue Description:
Anthropologists and others are currently wrestling with issues surrounding the concept of heritage. There are debates on the meaning of the past for the present, the implications of particular understandings of history for peoples and nations, and the role of monuments and archaeology for tourism. This course is an introduction to the concerns and issues involved in studies of heritage, tradition, historic preservation, public archaeology, and heritage tourism. The course takes an anthropological perspective on history and the past in the world today. The contested aspects of the past will be highlighted. The course will be run as a seminar, with no prerequisites.
Prospectus:
This course is an exploration of a central concern in the world today: heritage. Heritage is the focal point of legislation to protect antiquities, heritage is a central concern in conceptions of ethnic and national identities, and heritage is a resource for tourism. While the word is well known, the implications of heritage are understudied. This course provides an anthropological overview of history and the past in today's world by exploring the heritage concept. The course contains a central argument about the changing role of heritage in social relations, employs examples from around the globe using anthropological approaches, and asks students to critically engage theory and case studies on heritage.
Texts:
David Lowenthal 1998 The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History. Cambridge University Press.
Yorke Rowan and Uzi Baram, editors, 2004 Marketing Heritage: Archaeology and the Consumption of the Past. AltaMira (Listed below as MH)
Paul Shackel 2004 History in Black and White Race, Commemoration, and the Post-Bellum Landscape. Altamira.
The three books are available for purchase at the campus bookstore as well as other venues. All three are on reserve at the Cook Library. The articles and book chapters listed in the outline of topics are available on electronic reserve. Please note that electronic reserve allows easy access to the articles. You can print the articles and share them with your classmates; you can also locate the journals and books to read them in their original context.
Goals of the course:
Expectations:
1. Regular attendance: if you need to miss a class, contact the professor by email or voice mail before the class meeting. All standard excuses for missing a class will be accepted if requested before the class meeting. Unexcused absences are a basis for not satisfying this course.
2. Readings: you are expected to read and think about the readings that are listed in the outline of topics. Making connections among the readings and across the case studies will make for productive seminar-style discussions.
3. Discussion: you are expected to participate in class discussions based on the course readings, lectures, and your own observations on heritage. Throughout the semester, asking questions will be considered part of discussion.
4. Debates on Heritage: for several of the course topics, which will be announced, a debate style will be used to explore specific issues with the expectation that everyone will contribute to the consideration of the issues.
5. Beyond the Classroom: the class meets for only about three hours a week. The issues and concerns should extend beyond the classroom walls. The professor is available for discussing issues and insights but class members are expected to explore the ideas, examples, and arguments outside of the classroom with their classmates and others.
6. Written Work: the majority of the course evaluation will focus on the written work. Deadlines are firm and all work must be completed on time for a satisfactory evaluation in this course.
A. Finding Heritage – the first paper will be due on September 4th. A handout on the assignment will be provided on the first day of class.
B. Exploring the Heritage concept – due on November 3rd. The second assignment is a response paper for Memory in Black and White. A response paper is the opportunity to critically engage scholarship, exploring theoretical and methodological concerns. More details will be provided in class on this assignment.
C. Final Paper: returning to your first paper, explore the definitions and contours of the scholarly understanding of heritage by critically engaging The Heritage Crusade. Over the semester, case studies are used to make the arguments regarding heritage; for the final paper use one of the case studies from the course (the most relevant could be the chapters from Marketing Heritage) or a topic of your choosing (with the professor’s permission). More details on the assignment will be discussed in class. The 10-15 page paper is due on December 2nd.
Accessing the Professor
I will strive to arrive early to the classroom for each class meeting: that is a wonderful time to raise any questions about the course. My office hours are organized as open door: there is no need to sign up for a time slot, just come by my office. If there is a crowd of students, I will address your specific questions; if you are the only student to arrive, you have my attention to discuss nearly anything related to the course, anthropology, or the universe. Beyond office hours, if the door to my College Hall office is open and I’m free, you can drop in and we can chat. In addition, I will reply to emails but please be polite in your requests and acknowledge my response to your questions/concerns.
All New College Policies will be followed:
· A student claiming a need for special accommodations because of a disability must work with the Counseling and Wellness Center, which will establish the need for specific accommodations and communicate them to the instructor.
· Any suspected instance of plagiarism will be handled in accordance with the College’s policy on academic dishonesty.
· No student shall be compelled to attend class or sit for an examination at a day or time when he or she would normally be engaged in a religious observance or on a day or time prohibited by his or her religious belief. Students are expected to notify their instructors if they intend to be absent for a class or announced examination, in accordance with this policy, prior to the scheduled meeting.
Outline of Topics and Readings
Mini-Class
August 26 The Paradoxes and Possibilities of Heritage
I. Introduction and Background
August 28 What is the past and what has passed?
Reading:
1. Neil Asher Silberman 2001 “If I forget thee, O Jerusalem: archaeology, religious commemoration and nationalism in a disputed city, 1801-2001” Nations and Nationalism 7(4):487-504.
September 1 No Class due to Labor Day
September 4 Grand Tours: Uncovering the Past by Archaeologists and Others
Readings:
1. Lowenthal Introduction and Chapter 1 Heritage Ascendant
September 8 Terminology for the Past: Laws and International Conventions
Readings:
1. Little in MH: Is the Medium the Message?: The Art of Interpreting Archaeology in U.S. National Parks
2. Magness-Gardiner in MH: International Conventions and Cultural Heritage Protection
3. Skim the website UNESCO World Heritage Convention http://whc.unesco.org/en/conventiontext/
II. Connections to the Past
September 11 Showcasing Personal Legacies: Recent Heritage Museums
Readings:
1. Lowenthal Chapter 2 – Personal Legacies
2. Vinson in MH: From Lord Elgin to James Henry Breasted: The Politics of the Past in the First Era of Globalization
September 15 How Anthropologists Study, for instance, Living History Museums and Heritage Festivals
Readings:
1. Gable and Handler in MH: Deep Dirt: Messing Up the Past at Colonial Williamsburg
2. Bauman in MH: Tourism, the Ideology of Design, and the Nationalized Past in Zippori/Sepphoris, an Israeli National Park
3. Celeste Ray 2001 “The Brigadoon of the Scottish-American Community: Scottish Highland Games and Gatherings” From Highland Heritage: Scottish Americans in the American South.
September 18 How Anthropologists Study Heritage: Visit a Site of Heritage
Class meets at the Family Heritage House Museum, Manatee County College
September 22 Nationalism and Heritage: the Elgin/Parthenon Marbles
Readings:
1. Lowenthal Chapter 3 Collective Legacies
2. Kersel in MH: The Politics of Playing Fair, or Who’s Losing their Marbles?
2. Eleana Yalouri 2001 “Contesting Greek Identity: Between Local and Global” From The Acropolis: Global Fame, Local Claim.
September 25 Imagined Communities and Invented Traditions
Reading:
1. Lowenthal Chapter 4 Heritage Assailed
2. Yael Zerubavel 1994 “The Historic, the Legendary, and the Incredible: Invented Tradition and Collective Memory in Israel” In Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity.
3. Hugh Trevor-Roper 1988 “The Invention of Tradition: The Highland Tradition of Scotland” In The Invention of Tradition.
4. Henry Glassie 1995 Tradition Journal of American Folklore 108(430):395-412.
III. Heritage on Display
September 29 Commemorations: Tensions and the Theming of Places
Readings:
1. Kevin Yelvington, Neil Goslin, and Wendy Arriaga 2002 “Whose History?: Museum-making and the struggles over ethnicity and representation in the Sunbelt” Critique of Anthropology 22(3):343-379.
2. Andre-Marcel d’Ans 1980 “The Legend of Gasparilla: Myth and History on Florida’s West Coast” Tampa Bay History 2(2):5-29.
October 2 Theme Parks: Their Challenges for Heritage
Readings:
1. Edward Bruner 2001 “The Maasai and the Lion King: Authenticity, Nationalism, and Globalization in African Tourism” American Ethnologist 28(4):881-908.
2. Rowan in MH: Repackaging the Pilgrimage: Visiting the Holy Land in Orlando
October 6 Tourism: Going to Heritage Sites
Readings:
1. Paulla A. Ebron 2000 “Tourists as Pilgrims: Commercial Fashioning of
Transatlantic Politics” American
Ethnologist 26(4):910-932.
2. Helaine Silverman 2002 “Touring Ancient Times: The Present and Presented Past in Contemporary Peru” American Anthropologist 104(3):881-902.
3. Costa in MH: Conflicting Past and Present: Marketing Archaeological Heritage Sites in Ireland
4. Barbara Kingsolver 1995 “The Spaces Between” From Essays from Now or Never.
October 9 No class meeting
Assignment to be announced
Fall Break: October 13-17
October 20 The Challenge of Heritage Tourism: Appropriating Heritage through the Camera and the Gift Shop
Readings:
1. Ardren in MH:
Where are the Maya in Ancient Maya Archaeological Tourism: Advertising and the
Appropriation of Culture
2. Gazin-Schwartz in MH: Mementos of the Past: Material Culture of Tourism at Stonehenge and Avebury
3. Alexander Stille 2002 “The Culture of the Copy and the Disappearance of China’s Past” From The Future of the Past.
IV. Authenticity and Archaeology
October 23 Looking for History: The Challenges and Promise of Public Archaeology and Public History
Readings:
1. Lowenthal Chapters 5 The Purpose and Practice of History and 6 The Purpose of Heritage
2. James Horton 1999 “Presenting Slavery: The Perils of Telling America’s Racial Story” The Public Historian 21(4):19-38.
3. R. Thomas Dye 1997 “The Rosewood Massacre: History and the Making of Public Policy” The Public Historian 19(3):25-39
October 27 Confronting Heritage on Commemorative Landscapes
Readings:
1. Lowenthal Chapter 7 The Practice of Heritage
2. James in MH: Recovering the German Nation: Heritage Restoration and the Search for Unity
3. Shackel Preface, Introduction, Chapters 1, 2, and 3
October 30 The Importance of the Tangible Past on the Landscape
Readings:
1. Lowenthal Chapters 8 Being First and 9 Being Innate
2. Shackel Chapters 4, 5, 6, and Epilogue
3. Richard R. Flores 1998 “Memory-Place, Meaning, and the Alamo” American Literary History 10(3):428-445.
November 3 Erasing the Past: Bamiyan Buddhas, Ayodhya, the Temple of the Tooth, and the Mostar Bridge
Readings:
1. Lowenthal Chapter 10
Rivalry and Restitution
2. Golden in MH:
Targeting Heritage: The Abuse of Symbolic Sites in Modern Conflicts
3. Addison in MH: The Road to Ruins: Accessing Islamic Heritage Sites in Jordan
4. Lynn Meskell 2002 “Negative Heritage and Past Mastering in Archaeology” Anthropological Quarterly 75(3):557-574.
5. Robin Coningham and Nick Lewer 1999 “Paradise Lost: the Bombing of the Temple of the Tooth – a UNESCO World Heritage Site in Sri Lanka” Antiquity 73:857-866.
V. Globalization and Local Heritage
November 6 The Past is a Foreign Country
Readings:
1. Paige West and James G. Carrier 2004 “Ecotourism and Authenticity: Getting Away from It All?” Current Anthropology 45(4):483-498.
2. Michael Kelleher 2004 “Images of the Past: Historical Authenticity and Inauthenticity from Disney to Times Square” CRM 1(2):6-19.
3. Miriam Kahn 2000 “Tahiti Intertwined: Ancestral Land, Tourist Postcard, and Nuclear Test Site” American Anthropologist 102(1):7-26.
4. Kohl in MH: Making the Past Profitable in an Age of Globalization and National Ownership: Contradictions and Considerations
November 10 Stakeholders for the Past: Collaborations with Many Interests and Voices
Readings:
1. James Clifford 1997 “Fort Ross Mediations” From Routes: Travel and Translation in the Late Twentieth Century.
2. Stark and Griffin in MH: Archaeological Research and Cultural Heritage Management in Cambodia’s Mekong Delta: the Search for the “Cradle of Khmer Civilization”
3. Barbara Bender 1993 “Contested Landscapes (Medieval to Present-Day)” In Landscapes: Politics and Perspectives.
November 13 Çatalhöyük: Experiments in Multivocality
Readings:
1. Ayfer Bartu 2000 “Where is Çatalhöyük? Multiple Sites in the Construction of
an Archaeological Site” In Toward Reflexive Method in Archaeology: the
Example of Çatalhöyük.
2. Gero in MH: Engaging with Heritage Issues: the Role of the World Archaeological Congress
November 17 NAGPRA: Heritage and History in Native North America
Readings:
1. Joe Watkins 2004 “Becoming American or Becoming Indian?: NAGPRA, Kennewick and Cultural Affiliation” Journal of Social Archaeology 4(1):60-80.
2. Gary White Deer 1998 “Return of the Sacred: Spirituality and the Scientific Imperative”
In Reader in Archaeological Theory.
3. Claire Smith 2005 “Decolonising the Museum: the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington, DC” Antiquity 79:424-439.
November 20 – No class meeting
Assignment to be announced
November 24 Tasting Many Traditions: Food and Social Memory
Readings:
1. Sydney Mintz 1996 “Eating American” From Tasting Freedom.
2. Gaye Tuchman and Harry Levine 1993 “New York Jews and Chinese Food: the Social Construction of an Ethnic Pattern” Journal of Contemporary Ethnography 22(3):382-407.
3. William and Yvonne Lockwood 2000 “Continuity and Adaptation in Arab American Foodways” In Arab Detroit: From Margins to Mainstream.
November 27 – No Class due to Thanksgiving
December 1 The Past Today: A Common Human Heritage or a Fragmented History?
Readings:
1. Glyn Daniel 1962 “Prehistory and the Public” From The Idea of Prehistory.
2. Maria Franklin 1997 “`Power to the People’: Sociopolitics and the Archaeology of Black Americans” Historical Archaeology 31(3):36-50.
3. Sandra Scham and Abel Yahya 2003 “Heritage and Reconciliation’ Journal of Social Archaeology 3(3):399-415.
What is a Syllabus?
Heritage: History and the Past Today is formulated with no prerequisites so it is considered a course for first-year students. The challenge is the same as my other courses but I will be explicit about the research process, assumptions, and expectations. There are heavy demands of reading, research, and critical thinking toward exploring an important social phenomenon thus the goals for the course are demanding. The organization for the course is found in the previous pages as a syllabus. Contemporary Anthropology encourages reflexivity so this section explains this document as a guide to and for the syllabus.
The syllabus is an outline of a course of study. I see the syllabus as laying out the course for the semester, from where the class meets and which books to buy to the chronological progression through issues, concerns, and case studies deemed significant and meaningful to scholarship and to a liberal arts education. The course is built to be recursive - we will return to concepts and examples throughout the semester. The topics and readings should raise questions for each class meeting that can be addressed by lectures and discussions as well as encourage you to come to my office hours. I urge you to wrestle with the titles and concerns expressed in the syllabus to foreshadow the course conclusions.
But the syllabus should not be the limit of your efforts. If particular topics, themes, or arguments intrigue you, do not be discouraged by the limitations of the class meeting time. Students should discuss the issues outside of class with the professor and, more importantly, with each other. The syllabus allows everyone to predict topics and concerns so that outside of classroom discussions can set up robust consideration during class meeting times. And even with plentiful readings, students should read the rest of chapters from edited volumes, other articles from the journal issues, and other publications by the scholars engaged during the semester.
I see the syllabus as a contract between you and me. I require you to read, to write, and to participate in class discussions. I promise to cover the materials listed on the preceding pages. We can go through the semester following the syllabus exactly. But the syllabus can be a living document – we can negotiate changes. You should question the choices made and offer alternatives. This approach to the syllabus is in line with the NCF philosophy (found on the college website):
· Each student is responsible in the last analysis for his or her own education.
· The best education demands a joint search for learning by exciting teachers and able students.
· Student progress should be based on demonstrated competence and real mastery rather than on the accumulation of credits and grades.
· Students should have from the outset opportunities to explore in depth areas of interest to them.