INDEPENDENT PUBLISHER OF BILINGUAL SCHOLARLY BOOKS IN THE HUMANITIES AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

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Series: Series in Heritage Studies

Stories in Stone: Memorialization, the Creation of History and the Role of Preservation

Emily Williams, Durham University

May 2020 / ISBN: 978-1-62273-965-3
Availability: In stock
285pp. ¦ $62 £47 €53

*Co-Winner of the Historic Preservation Book Prize 2021* In 1866, Alexander Dunlop, a free black living in Williamsburg Virginia, did three unusual things. He had an audience with the President of the United States, testified in front of the Joint Congressional Committee on Reconstruction, and he purchased a tombstone for his wife, Lucy Ann Dunlo... p. Purchases of this sort were rarities among Virginia’s free black community—and this particular gravestone is made more significant by Dunlop’s choice of words, his political advocacy, and the racialized rhetoric of the period. Carved by a pair of Richmond-based carvers, who like many other Southern monument makers, contributed to celebrating and mythologizing the “Lost Cause” in the wake of the Civil War, Lucy Ann’s tombstone is a powerful statement of Dunlop’s belief in the worth of all men and his hopes for the future. Buried in 1925 by the white members of a church congregation, and again in the 1960s by the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, the tombstone was excavated in 2003. Analysis, conservation, and long-term interpretation were undertaken by the Foundation in partnership with the community of the First Baptist Church, a historically black church within which Alexander Dunlop was a leader. “Stories in Stone: Memorialization, the Creation of History and the Role of Preservation” examines the story of the tombstone through a blend of object biography and micro-historical approaches and contrasts it with other memory projects, like the remembrance of the Civil War dead. Data from a regional survey of nineteenth-century cemeteries, historical accounts, literary sources, and the visual arts are woven together to explore the agentive relationships between monuments, their commissioners, their creators and their viewers and the ways in which memory is created and contested and how this impacts the history we learn and preserve.   Show more

Heritage as an action word: Uses beyond communal memory

Edited by Susan Shay, Heritage Research Centre, University of Cambridge and Kelly M. Britt, Brooklyn College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York, United States

February 2024 / ISBN: 978-1-64889-844-0
Availability: In stock
242pp. ¦ $104 £83 €97

There is no limit to what constitutes heritage. By definition, heritage is the use of the past for present purposes. Yet, to any given group or population, heritage can be a multitude of things and can serve a variety of purposes. Based on shared memory, heritage can be tangible or intangible, boundless in variety and scope: it can be, for example... , objects, landscapes, food or clothing, music or dance, sites or statues, monuments or buildings. Importantly, however, heritage also has many and varied uses and powers. It can be used to control, to unite, to engage, and to empower people, communities, and nations. In this interdisciplinary volume, authors from around the world explore how different communities, nations, and groups intentionally and creatively use heritage, both tangible and intangible, in a wide variety of ways to positively address social and environmental issues. Significantly, these studies demonstrate how heritage can be an exceptionally valuable tool for political, economic, and social change. Insightful studies are presented pertaining to heritage as social memory, including the nationalistic political use of heritage, heritage as resistance to political powers, traditional knowledge as environmental science, heritage for legal and community action, heritage for building peace, heritage for Indigenous and minority empowerment, and heritage for exploring the past through phenomenological methods. The goal of this volume is to move beyond seeing heritage as only social memory, a mere interpretation of static past events, people or places, and instead explores critically the variety of ways heritage is engaged in the present and can be in the future.   Show more

Archaeology as a Weapon: Long-lasting legacies of colonialism and nationalism in Israel, Palestine, Greece and Cyprus

Marie-Louise Winbladh

ISBN: 979-8-8819-0273-5
Availability: Forthcoming
$123 £95 €113

In Israel, Palestine, Cyprus and Greece, the reconstruction of the past through archaeology has been used to strengthen national identity. Narratives about the past and origin myths have been constructed for political purposes. Cyprus and Palestine have both suffered from British colonialism since the early twentieth century, which has had a profo... und influence on their cultural heritage. Through nationalism, archaeology has been exploited by far-right movements and political parties to claim ownership of heritage and has become an efficient political tool. In Israel, archaeology and religion have been exploited to construct the Israeli state and still play a crucial role. The country claims to be the conqueror of Palestine under the protection of God, who they believe gave them possession of the land. Western religious groups are convinced that it is the religious duty of Christians to support the modern nation-state of Israel. Biblical archaeology has become an ultra-religious American speciality, marked by fraud and pseudoresearch. Notorious smuggling scandals were staged by American Christian multibillionaires buying artefacts looted from the National Museum of Iraq and other countries. Looting, plundering and blacklisting are among the most serious problems in Cyprus, causing irreparable damage to artefacts, monuments and society. Palestine’s rich archaeological, historical, and religious heritage has been undermined by occupation and land confiscation. Hundreds of sites have been looted during the Israeli occupation, and an illegal trade of ancient artefacts has occurred on a large scale. Populism is frequently associated with extreme nationalism and racism. Over the past few years, white nationalists and supremacists have seized the history of Greece and Rome. White nationalists and neo-Nazis in the US have used the slogan “Classics Made Great Again” showing their obsession with ancient sculptures and their alleged whiteness. When visiting Jerusalem, the Trump administration promoted an evangelical program where the politics of moral superiority is associated with white Christian supremacy.   Show more

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