Previous events within the Critical Heritage Studies Network (CHSN)
Previous events within the network are listed here in chronological order.
- May 27th 2021, 4 pm - 6 pm: Helaine Silverman, The Mythic Mississippi Project
CHSN seminar: Professor Helaine Silverman, University of Illinois, presents the cultural heritage promoting Mythic Mississippi Project.
The Mississippi is the river that made America. It was a corridor of culture, civilization and commerce for more than a thousand years. The Mississippi River looms large in the American imagination and even larger in the factual history of the United States. As it happens, the longest stretch of the river borders the state of Illinois and it is impossible to understand the development of Illinois without reference to the river.
Illinois has a fascinating history with many sites related to centuries of that past. The “Mythic Mississippi Project” was inspired by the issue of under-exploitation of cultural heritage resources in the state. We are specifically interested in “downstate” – Illinois south of Springfield (the state capital), which is a rural area that is economically challenged. We are seeking to develop multiple regional-level tourism trails that will link local towns according to particular heritage themes. These include African American, Native American, Labor and French Colonial among others. We also are interested in particular towns, such as Alton, with an exceptionally rich and poorly know suite of heritage resources. Moreover, the project seeks to “layer” cultural heritage wherever possible so as to achieve “attraction density” and thus promote visitation.
The project is funded by the University of Illinois and is intended to be a major public outreach and civic engagement project of the university that will positively impact downstate Illinois communities, promoting economic and social development through tourism. - April 22nd 2021, 3 pm - 5 pm: Cultural Heritage of the "Lost Navy"
Andreas Linderoth, historian, Simon Ekström, ethnologist, and Mirja Arnshav, archaeologist, present their projects on circulation, recontextualization, memory and more of the heritage of the Swedish sailing navy. The projects are part of the research project The Lost Navy – Sweden’s “blue” heritage 1450–1850.
Andreas Linderoth, National Maritime and Transport Museums: The last phase in the ship’s life-cycle? The Swedish sailing navy as cultural heritage in museums 1945–2020.
Museums are places where history might be formed, forgotten or highlighted. What do museums want their visitors remember –and forget –about the Swedish navy and its history? This subproject studies how the sailing Swedish navy has been described and presented in and around exhibitions
Simon Ekström, Stockholm University: Historical guns – a life cycle perspective on a retrieved maritime heritage
Retrieved cannons have often attracted a significant interest. They might help to identify a ship, provide knowledge of naval equipment and tactics, and be part of military collections highlighting the nations’ glorious past. Some of these cannons are the focus of this study.
Mirja Arnshav, National Maritime and Transport Museums: Black oak, blue heritage – the material circulation of former men-of-war
In Sweden, the waterlogged, dark/blackish oakwood which in English is referred to as bog oak is usually derived from old warships. What aspects pf Swedish naval history have been promoted through the salvage and reuse of this wreck wood? How has the fragmentation of the wood from the wrecks affected the awareness of the ships’ history and the assessment of the wreck sites? This subproject aims to explore the cultural history and materiality of black oak. - February 25th 2021, 3 pm - 5 pm: Rebecka Katz Thor - Remember Us To Life
CHSN seminar: Vulnerable Memory in a Prospective Monument, Memorial and Museum. Rebecka Katz Thor, Södertörn University, presented her newly started project on memory work as a way of highlighting a societal wound.
"The research addresses how contemporary discussions of public commemoration can be understood in relation to notions of vulnerability and grievability, the role of the commissioner, how future practices of commemoration can be sensible to a variety of aesthetic expressions, voices and experiences and how these commemorative projects can be considered as a form of ethical response to the past" - From the project description. Read more at Riksbankens Jubileumsfond - November 5th 2020, 3 pm - 5 pm: De små båtarna och den stora flykten
Mirja Arnshav, Ph.D. Candidate of Archaeology at Stockholm University, presents her research. The dissertation covers the events at the end of the second world war, when more than 30 000 people fled across the Baltic Sea to Sweden. Arnshav examines what material traces are left from these events, how this cultural heritage is managed and used today, and what insights might be gained by approaching the escape by starting the investigation from objects and relics connected to the escape. The study will focus on the refugee boats which have remained along the Swedish East coast. On a national level, there is only fragmented knowledge on these relics. An overarching purpose of the project is therefore to illuminate and bring attention to this largely unstudied cultural heritage.
- February 6th 2020, 3 pm - 5 pm: Decolonizing the Monument / Rethinking the Memorial
CHSN seminar in collaboration with the higher seminar in Art History at the Department of Culture and Aesthetics, are delighted to welcome Professor Annie Coombes, Founding Director of the Peltz Gallery and Professor of Material and Visual Culture in the Department of History of Art, Birkbeck, University of London, for a lecture on the topic Decolonizing the Monument / Rethinking the Memorial.
As a counterpoint to the rise of the nationalist right (again) in Europe, the United States and elsewhere in the world, there has been an increased demand on many university campuses, for institutions to address colonial amnesia and to actively decolonize the curriculum. Municipal statuary has become the visual centerpiece of these protests – with the call for iconoclastic removal ironically transforming them from neglected and banalized remnants of former colonial glory into hyper-visible symbols of colonial power.
Using examples from Kenya, Spain and South Africa, this lecture considers the ways in which various visual and cultural strategies might be said to perform the requirements of either a monument or a memorial – a living symbolic commemorative structure – in the contexts of particularly violent pasts targeting civilian populations. While a decolonizing agenda is similarly a dimension of these examples, the lecture argues that they also offer an alternative relational structure to memorialisation which reinstates the centrality of process to enable a more meaningful and organic engagement with the past.
Prof. Coombes is a cultural historian specializing in the history and culture of British colonialism and its legacy in the present, particularly in Africa. She has produced key publications that investigate contemporary state and community-led memorial projects and museum approaches to difficult histories, including: History After Apartheid: Visual Culture and Public Memory in a Democratic South Africa (2003), Managing Heritage, Making Peace: History, Identity and Memory in Contemporary Kenya (with L. Hughes and Karega-Munene, 2013) and Museum Transformations: Decolonization and Democratization (with Ruth B. Phillips, 2015). - November 21st 2019, 3 pm - 5 pm: Material Mediation
CHSN seminar: presentation by Annalisa Bolin, Postdoctoral Fellow, UNESCO Chair on Heritage Futures at Linnaeus University, Sweden: Material Mediation: Heritage Politics Across Rwanda’s Borders.
Since the genocide in 1994, Rwanda’s government has focused on building a new nation with a new, stronger position in the international arena. In part, this has involved the strategic use of cultural and genocide heritage to transform the nation, such that the government mobilizes heritage within a number of sociopolitical projects. These projects operate simultaneously in domestic and international spheres, drawing on local and global forces to shape the construction of heritage.
This talk discusses how heritage’s materiality both manifests and challenges ideas about development and progress in the creation of the “New Rwanda” by tracing conservation work at two parallel—but very different—genocide memorials. The dynamics at these memorials demonstrate how globally-circulating discourses about material heritage are transformed by domestic politics. However, I further argue that for Rwanda, heritage politics do not stop at international borders. I introduce the government’s attempts to transform international relations through heritage negotiations, with attention to recently-launched efforts to repatriate items from collections held in German museums. Collectively, these cases indicate the potential of heritage to materialize and mediate larger sociopolitical processes both within and between nations. - October 10th 2019: Samla samtid
CHSN Seminar, PhD Elin Nystrand von Unge presents her recently finished doctoral thesis Samla samtid.
Elin Nystrand von Unge has investigated how museums oriented towards cultural history has collected and documented contemporary times. In Sweden, this practice has developed mainly since the 1970ies. Her thesis shows, using ethographic methods, how this practice has been formulated and how it has progressed. - April 25-27 2019: The Thrill of the Dark: Heritages of Fear, Fascination and Fantasy
International conference in Birmingham, UK, in cooperation between CHSN, University of Birmingham (UK) and University of Illinois (US).
Darkness is a complex concept. In a real and a metaphorical sense it invites contemplation and imagination of the sad, the unknown, the fearful and unwholesome desires. At the same time it is thrilling and strangely attractive, playing with deep and persistent cultural and metaphysical tensions of good and evil , right and wrong. Darkness provides space for hiding but also for exploration; it holds the potential for acceptance, forgiveness, or reconciliation for the haunted. Despite our apparent fear of the dark and the risks it hides, it nonetheless holds a powerful fascination which is evident in many aspects of popular culture.
Over recent years there has been tremendous interest in ‘dark heritage’ and associated ‘dark tourism’ but still we struggle with the powerful attraction of the darkness, the thrill it can provide and where (and if) we draw boundaries around its commodification its representation and the experiences we seek from it. Many forms of heritage function as a materialization of darkness and what it represents and offer ways of exploring how societies / communities deal with complex moral and emotional issues. Heritage sites and associated events / activities reflect both historical and fictional trauma and can act in illuminating and reconciliatory ways. Others hold onto their dark narratives to deliberately obscure and hide. Others still, play with, parody and test public sensibilities and capitalize on the idea of the thrill.
This conference seeks to explore the multiple relationships we have with the concept of darkness with reference to the legacies we create from it. How is the thrill of darkness expressed through the widely framed notion of heritage? How do we experience, negotiate, represent, commodify, valorise or censor the heritages of darkness? What and where is the thrill of the darkness and how is it negotiated across cultures, generations and gender? Why does the dark fascinate us so?
We invite researchers from the fullest range of disciplinary perspectives to consider these and other questions in an open-ended and thought-provoking manner. We welcome papers from colleagues working in anthropology, archaeology, architecture, business, education, English, ethnology, heritage, history, geography, languages, sociology and urban studies.
- March 6th 2019, 3 pm - 5 pm: Skeletons in the Closet. Difficult Museums
CHSN seminar: presentation of Skeletons in the Closet. Difficult Museums, a new book written by Ana Luiza Rocha do Valle and Stefan Bohman, which considerers how museums deals with the remembering and – especially – the forgetting of difficult histories. At core lies a discussion of how canonised persons are dealt with, such having a difficult history as Richard Wagner, General Lee, Zarah Leander, Verner von Heidenstam, Gustaf Mannerheim, and many more.
Ana Luiza Rocha do Valle is a Brazilian museologist and PhD Student at Department of Literary Theory (University of Sao Paolo) and Stefan Bohman, Associate Professor in Museology (Umeå Universitet) and also former Museum Director. Both authors presents the book and its outcomes, through both Brazilian and Swedish examples. The presentation is followed by a discussion. - December 6th 2018, 3 pm - 5 pm: Critical Heritage Studies Heads Towards the Future
CHSN seminar where Mattias Frihammar, Anna Källén, et.al. from the working group for implementing Critical Heritage Studies as a specific research area at Stockholm University, presents their plans. Please join us to be part of the forming of the future!
- November 15th 2018, 3 pm - 5 pm: Post-Asylum Landscapes - A Displaced Cultural Heritage
CHSN Seminar, Hedvig Mårdh and Cecilia Rodéhn, Uppsala university, present the preliminary outcomes of their on-going research project "Ulleråker - funktionsnedsättning och kulturarv". The project focuses on one of Sweden’s largest psychiatric hospitals, Ulleråker, which is about to be transformed into a residential area.
Until the 1990s Ulleråker was the permanent or temporary home of thousands of individuals, patients and staff. Today many of the buildings are empty, waiting for demolition or reuse. The project is funded by The Swedish National Heritage Board 2017-2019. The projects adress a number of issues related to norms, functionality, memory and materiality, e.g. how to include complex heritage in urban planning and how the memory of displaced patients and staff can be preserved in a respectful way that also makes the heritage of the site relevant to new residents. - February 15th 2018, 3 pm - 5 pm: Culture-Nature. Water Heritage in Asia
CHSN Seminar, the network will be visited by Nupur Prothi Khanna. The theme of Nupur's lecture is "Culture-Nature: Water Heritage in Asia". Nupur's emphasis on collaborative engagements and synergies across disciplines is rooted in her academic background. With graduate and post graduate degrees in Physical Planning and Landscape Architecture from SPA, Delhi and Heritage Conservation from York University (UK), her work through Beyond Built Pvt. Ltd. (www.beyondbuilt.in), a research based design practice in Delhi seeks to bridge these diverse interests.
She is also a voting expert from India on the ICOMOS Scientific Committee on Cultural Landscapes and an Advisory board member of the ISoCaRP institute based out of The Hague. - February 15th 2017, 3 pm - 5 pm: Sarpsborg 1000 years
CHSN Seminar about a Nordic medieval column painting in the Church of the Nativity, Bethlehem, and its role in Heritage and Pilgrimage projects during the 1000-year anniversary 2016 of the City of Sarpsborg in Norway. Studies of reframing of heritage, the oldest preserved painting of Saint Olav and its donatrix portrait, Kristin Sigurdsdotter.
2016 the City of Sarpsborg in Norway celebrated its 1000-year anniversary according with founder of the town 1016, the historical king Olav II Haraldsson (the martyr Saint Olav). A pilgrimage- and museum project was carried out in cooperation with the Church of the Nativity and the City of Bethlehem, Palestine. The two cities share a common cultural heritage of Saint Olav. One of the columns in the church shows the oldest painting of Saint Olav of Norway from the middle of the twelfth century. The Church of the Nativity was listed 2012 by UNESCO as World Heritage of Palestine and a restoration of the column paintings has started. Then the image of Saint Olav and its donatrix figure Kristin Sigurdsdotter will appear in brighter colors. - September 26th 2016: International conference: Reframing Heritage as Movement
The first day of the conference Reframing Heritage as Movement, is an open day gathering researchers, professionals and students within the research area of critical heritage studies.
Recent political developments in the world call for new conceptualizations of cultural heritage. A dramatic increase in the mobility of people and heritage objects across Europe and around the world has revealed gaps, flaws and insufficiencies in a view of heritage as stable, homogenous, and site-bound. New conceptions of heritage are called for, conceptions which can accommodate diversity, transnational identities, and refugee experiences.
The Swedish Ministry of Culture is soon proposing a new ‘inclusive’ heritage politics with ‘room for different perspectives on history’, based on the premise that ‘our common heritage is in constant movement and is shaped by people together’. But to what extent is this view compatible with the existing national and international institutions, structures and regulations for heritage management and heritage consumption? How deep goes the traditional static, site- and nation-bound concept of heritage? How are ideas of stability and homogeneity manifested in common conceptions of heritage? What changes are required to instead privilege movement, diversity, and sharing? Could a reframing of heritage as movement break up ideas of essential bounded cultural units, and allow heritage to be a vehicle for intercultural respect and tolerance?
With examples and experiences from across the world, six leading heritage scholars explore how Critical Heritage Studies can provide a wider framework and deeper analysis of the possibility to reframe heritage as movement. The first day of the conference, 26 Sept, is open for researchers, students, and professionals interested in issues of heritage as movement, with an expected number of around 100 participants. In combination with the international group, there is an internal and interdisciplinary reference group of scholars from within Stockholms University supporting the conference.
The speakers of the open day and the titles of the presentations, are:
Jiat-Hwee Chang (Singapore) "Permeability, Mobility and Mutability: Three ´Movements´ in the Colonial Built Heritage of Southeast Asia"
Valdimar Hafstein (Iceland) "Heritage in Motion: Masculinity, Modernity, and Uprightness in Traditional Wrestling"
Siân Jones (Great Britain) ' "Dynamic and ever-changing": shifting relations in the politics and practice of heritage in Scotland'
Ali Mozaffari (Iran & Australia) "Bound by heritage? Re-imagining the domain of Iranian culture since the 1990s"
Helaine Silverman (USA) "Affiliative Reterritorialization: Monument, Heritage and the Japanese Colony in Peru"
Tim Winter (Australia) "Heritage diplomacy and One Belt One Road"
For questions regarding program and contents, please contact the conference chair Anna Källén. - 10-11 September 2015: International Conference - Heritage of Death: Landscapes, Sentiment and Practice
An international conference organized by Department of Ethnology – Stockholm University, CHAMP/Collaborative for Cultural Heritage Management and Policy – University of Illinois.
During the conference Heritage of Death scholars from sixteen countries discussed different aspects of death, burial, cemeteries, memory and remembrance for two days at Stockholm University. The approach was interdisciplinary and both religious, political, economic, cultural, and aesthetic aspects of death were scrutinized. Key Note speaker was Professor Mike Robinson, Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage.
The program included a visit to Skogskyrkogården, The Woodland Cemetery (a UNESCO World Heritage site) and a special guided tour of the Royal Armoury exhibition Theatre of Death. The participants came from Australia, Belgium, Canada, Chile, England, Estonia, Germany, Ireland, Israel, Lebanon, Poland, Portugal, Scotland, Sweden, Taiwan, The Netherlands and USA.
The conference was a collaboration between The Department of Ethnology, History of Religions and Gender studies and The Critical Heritage Studies Network at Stockholm University, CHAMP/Collaborative for Cultural Heritage Management and Policy at the University of Illinois, and Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage at the University of Birmingham, UK.
Last updated: November 10, 2021
Source: Nätverket för kritiska kulturarvsstudier