Lecture Keir Reeves: Heritage, History and Politics: A Global Perspective

DE EERDER AANGEKONDIGDE LEZING VAN LAURAJANE SMITH KAN HELAAS NIET DOORGAAN. IN PLAATS DAARVAN ZAL KEIR REEVES OP 17 SEPTEMBER SPREKEN OVER “HERITAGE, HISTORY AND POLITICS”

His talk examines the nexus between heritage, history and politics. It will consider a number of global examples and discuss the changing uses of heritage over time.

As cultural historian John Gillis has observed, memory is as central to modern politics as politics is central to modern memory. The idea of contested memory provides one way of explaining interpretations of the past and management of heritage sites in the present day.

Yet a tension emerges as history is a discipline that studies the past, whereas heritage is the constructed depiction of the past in the present day usually understood through built and intangible forms. While they are often spoken of as having an intellectual commonality in terms of their concern with understanding the past, methodologically history and heritage are increasingly odd bed-fellows. Yet both history and heritage have, and continue to be, deployed for political purposes and directly influence the ways that communities and, for that matter, nation states remember the past.

KEIR REEVES currently holds a research chair at Federation University Australia. His previous principal teaching and research positions at the University of Melbourne and Monash have been in global cultural heritage, cultural tourism and history. Keir’s publications include co-editing Places of Pain and Shame: Dealing with Difficult Heritage (2009). He also contributed to the Bruce Scates-led Anzac Journeys: Walking the Battlefields of the Second World War (2013) that was shortlisted for the 2014 Australian Historical Association Ernest Scott Prize. In 2019 he is Visiting Fellow at the Centre for the Humanities (UU).

For information:

Gertjan Plets, g.f.plets@uu.nl / Carlotta Capurro, c.capurro@uu.nl