Course description
This course introduces key issues in contemporary critical heritage studies by exploring cultural heritage as an object of politics, economics, and memory. Taking a comparative
perspective, we will examine different heritage regimes and their roles in establishing and contesting social, national, religious, and cultural boundaries. Topics include the variety of heritage bureaucracies and infrastructures, value regimes, heritage strategies and affective politics of authentication.
We will analyze the development and influence of the European authorized heritage
discourse alongside alternative approaches to evaluating and re-evaluating material remains from non-European cultures and civilizations. The course also addresses conflicts and competition between heritage systems and actors, exploring cases of struggle, exclusion, and the various methods used to analyze and resolve such situations.
Course activities consist of introductory lectures and seminars featuring case studies from both Western and Eastern civilizations. Students from diverse cultural and professional backgrounds will engage in interactive work, fostering a collaborative and dynamic learning environment.

Learning Outcomes
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
• Navigate key concepts and major debates in contemporary critical heritage studies.
• Compare and contrast different heritage regimes across Western and Eastern contexts.
• Critically evaluate the development and impact of the European authorized heritage discourse alongside alternative heritage valorization systems.
• Analyze conflicts and competitions between diverse heritage systems and actors.
• Apply interdisciplinary methods to understanding and decoding heritage issues
• Demonstrate the ability to engage in interactive discussions and collaborative learning in multicultural and professional settings.

Evaluation
Class participation 20%
Two class presentations 20%
Two reflective essays 20%
Weakly reading responses 20%
Final paper 20%

Readings
Bendix, Regina, Aditya Eggert and Arnika Peselmann, eds (2013), Heritage Regimes and the State, Göttingen: University Press.
Daly, Patrick and Tim Winter, eds. (2012). Routledge Handbook of Heritage in Asia. London: Routledge
Gantner, Eszter, Corinne Geering, and Paul Vickers, eds (2021), Heritage under Socialism: Preservation in Eastern and Central Europe, 1945–1991, New York and Oxford: Berghahn Books.
González, Pablo Alonso (2018). Cuban cultural heritage: a rebel past for a
revolutionary nation. Gainesville; Tallahassee; Tampa; Boca Raton: University Press of Florida
Gorshenina, Svetlana and Vera Tolz (2016), ‘Constructing Heritage in Early Soviet Central Asia: The Politics of Memory in a Revolutionary Context’, Ab Imperio, 4: 77–115.
Harrison, Rodney, ed. (2010), Understanding the Politics of Heritage, 5–42, Manchester and Milton Keynes: Manchester University Press.
Pimenova, Ksenia. (2023), From a Museum of Others to a Museum of Selves: Repatriation, Affective Relations, and Social Values of Archaeological Human Remains, HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory, 13 (1): 159–78.
Smith, Laurajane. (2006), Uses of Heritage, London and New York: Routledge.
Smith, Stephen (2015), ‘Contentious Heritage: The Preservation of Churches and Temples in Communist and Post-Communist Russia and China’, Past and Present, Supplement 10: 178– 213.
Stevenson, Lisa (2006), The Ethical Injunction to Remember, in P. Stern and L. Stevenson (eds), Critical Inuit Studies: An Anthology of Contemporary Arctic Ethnography, 168-183, Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Tunbridge, John and Gregory Ashworth (1996) Dissonant Heritage: the Management of the Past as a Resource in Conflict. Chichester: Wiley.

Last updated: June 12, 2025