NES 2565

Global Heritage

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2016-2017.

"Heritage" typically conjures images of a glorified human past, and evokes sentiments of care for lost or endangered cultures that symbolize humanity's diversity. But heritage is also the foundation for a multi-billion dollar tourist industry and a basis for claims to national sovereignty. A closer look at heritage reveals institutions, places, and things possessed of extraordinary power. Drawing on case studies from around the world, this course attends to the complexities of heritage today. Topics include heritage ethics, tourism and the marketing of the past, approaches to preservation and management, disputed heritage and violence, heritage ideologies from nationalism to universalism, participation and inequality from the grassroots to the global, "counterheritage", and the practice of public archaeology. Students apply insights gained by designing projects as heritage practitioners, engaged with "heritage-scapes" at Cornell and beyond.

When Offered Spring.

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