USC Dornsife

Spring 2020 Instructor: Dr. Kirby Farah

Email: kirbyfar@usc.edu
Meeting Time: TTH 2-3:20pm
GESM 130 Meeting Location: LVL 3Y
Cultural Heritage in the News Office: HNB B29b
Office Hours: TTh 12:30-1:30pm
or by appointment

“Who controls the past controls the future; who controls the present controls the past.”
- George Orwell

COURSE DESCRIPTION
In this course, we will introduce the concept of heritage and identify the various institution, organizations, and
individuals that define it. Heritage is deeply political topic, and it intersects with and is shaped by a number of
broader issues. In particular, we will address how heritage is tied to debates concerning tourism and development,
identity, international law and ethics, and human rights. We will learn about practical considerations, such as public
policy and legal frameworks, and will address how factors such as colonialism, nationalism, and war have shaped
public perception of heritage over the centuries. Modern threats to heritage—such as armed conflict, environmental
degradation, uncontrolled development, and illicit trade—will also be explored in great detail. Students will learn to
engage in current debates about ownership, responsibility, and authenticity as they relate to heritage, and will be
exposed to real-world (and constantly shifting) case studies throughout the semester.

Each week we will focus on a specific heritage topic. We will learn about these topics primarily through the lens of
popular media and scholarly writing. Heritage is shaped in large part by public opinion and analyzing how media
reflects and influences public perception is important in the context of this class.

REQUIRED TEXTS
Meskell L. (2018) A Future in Ruins: UNESCO, World Heritage, and the Dream of Peace, New York: Oxford
University Press

OTHER COURSE MATERIALS

Other required readings for this class are posted on Blackboard. You will find that in addition to scholarly chapters
and articles, many of the assigned readings for this class are news articles. These readings will highlight the various
ways in which heritage topics are discussed and dramatized in the media. You will also be asked to occasionally
listen to podcasts and watch viral videos to prepare for class conversations.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES
By the end of this course, students will be able to:
1. Define cultural heritage.
2. Identify the various political, social, scientific, and economic factors that contribute to how we designate
and value cultural heritage.
3. Apply anthropological methods to analyze and critique the criteria used by UNESCO and other national
and international institutions to define cultural heritage.
4. Analyze and engage with major debates surrounding cultural heritage.
5. Propose a new cultural heritage site or intangible heritage element that should be recognized and protected
by UNESCO.

Page 1 of 6
 GRADING BREAKDOWN
ASSIGNMENT DUE DATE % OF GRADE
CLASS PARTICIPATION Weekly 10
PAPER #1 February 27, 2020 15
MIDTERM EXAM March 5, 2020 15
PAPER #2 April 2, 2020 15
FINAL PROJECT April 29, 2020 20
FINAL PRESENTATION April 27 and 29, 2020 10
FINAL EXAM May 5, 2020 15
TOTAL - 100

GRADING SCALE
Course final grades will be determined using the following scale:
A 94-100 B- 80-82 D+ 67-69
A- 90-93 C+ 77-79 D 63-66
B+ 87-89 C 73-76 D- 60-62
B 83-86 C- 70-72 F 59 and below

GRADING NOTES
Late assignments will be deducted a letter grade for every day they are late. Midterm Papers are due in (hardcopy) at
the beginning of class. If you are sick or otherwise unable to come to class on the day they are due, you are expected
to email me a copy of the paper before the start of class. You will then be required to bring a copy of the paper the
next time you come to class.

BLACKBOARD
Use of blackboard will be important for this class. If you are having any trouble accessing Blackboard please let me
know as soon as possible and I will try to help. You may also seek additional assistance with IT Services.

DESCRIPTION OF ASSIGNMENTS
CLASS PARTICIPATION (10%)
To succeed in this class, it will be crucial that you attend lecture and participate in discussion. Class attendance is
mandatory. To prepare for class discussions you will need to read, watch, or listen to all class materials BEFORE
coming to class. Assigned readings are listed below and are available via Blackboard.

PAPER # 1 (15%)
For the first paper you will be prompted to write about the topic of repatriation. You will choose from a series of
heritage dilemmas involving repatriation and not yet discussed in class. You will be asked to discuss the complexity
of the dilemma and to argue for how it should be handled. Keep in mind the laws and protocols discussed in the first
several weeks of class. Draw on readings and discussions from class to support your argument. (4 pages)

MIDTERM EXAM (20%)

The format of the midterm exam will include multiple choice, short answer, and long response or essay questions.
The essay portion will focus more on larger issues we address in class and will ask you to write critically about these
broader concepts and to draw on the readings to support your arguments.

PAPER #2 (15%)
The second midterm paper assignment is structurally identical to the first. The dilemmas will focus on “negative
heritage” issues. (4 pages)

FINAL PROJECT (20%)

For your final project in this course you will be expected to critically examine a cultural site or a heritage practice
that you feel should qualify as a UNESCO World Heritage Site or Intangible Cultural Heritage practice. The site or
practice you choose can be something that is important to you personally, or a community you belong to. It may

Page 2 of 6
also be a site or practice that you know to be socially meaningful to a community that you do not belong to. Using
the criteria for selection for the World Heritage List created by UNESCO (and available here
http://whc.unesco.org/en/criteria/ or here for intangible heritage https://ich.unesco.org/en/convention#art2) you are
tasked with creating an argument for why your site or practice should be elevated to the status of a “World Heritage
Site” or “Intangible Cultural Heritage” by UNESCO. Your final project will be submitted in the form of a written
proposal. (8-10 pages)

FINAL PRESENTATION (10%)

Create a 5- to 7-minute presentation in any style you choose. You can do a presentation with Power Point, create a
video, do a performance, create a comic book or game. This presentation should be aimed at convincing your
audience (all of us!) that your World Heritage Site or Intangible Cultural Heritage practice should be recognized by
UNESCO.

FINAL EXAM (20%)

The format of the final exam is much like the midterm and will include multiple choice, short answer, and long
response or essay questions. The essay portion will focus more on larger issues we address in class and will ask you
to write critically about these broader concepts and to draw on the readings to support your arguments. Although the
final exam is cumulative, it focuses more heavily on materials from the latter half of class.

COURSE SCHEDULE
Week Date Topic Reading/Viewing/Listening Assignments
1 1/14 Introduction Syllabus; Introduction Activity
1/16 The Importance of (Hi)stories Arnold 1999; Adichie (TED talk/link)
Institutions and Heritage
2 1/21 Defining Heritage Meskell 2018 (Chs. 1 and 2); UNESCO
(link)
1/23
Blake 2000
3 1/28 Defining Intangible Heritage Ivey 2008 (excerpts); Lowthorp 2015;
Meskell (Ch. 3 and 4)

1/30 Hafstein 2018 (Ch. 1)

Stewardship of Cultural Heritage
4 2/4 The Elgin Marbles Sánchez 2017; Hamilakis 1999;
Meskell 2018 (Ch. 5)

2/6 Yasaitis 2006

5 2/11 NAGPRA, Kennewick Man, and NAGPRA (link); UnDone Ep. 2
Debates Surrounding the Remains (podcast); Boissoneault 2018
of Indigenous Peoples
2/13 Colwell (TedTalk); Archambault 2016;
Meyer 2016; Standing Rock Timeline
(link); DAPL protests (video/link)
6 2/18 Toward a Better Model for LaRoche and Blakey1997; Mack and
Stewardship: Community Blakey 2004; Rothstein 2010
Engagement
2/20 CLASS CANCELLED
7 2/25 Tourism of the Ancient Maya Pi-Sunyer and Thomas 2015; Farah and
Seligson 2018
Tourism of the Vietnam/American Henderson 2000; Rosen 2015; PAPER # 1 DUE
2/27 War Schwenkel 2006
8 3/3 Review
3/5 Midterm Exam MIDTERM

Page 3 of 6
 Special Topics in Heritage Studies
9 3/9 Negative Heritage Meskell 2002; Moses 2015 (excerpt)
3/11 Greco 2016; Rico 2013
10 SPRING BREAK
11 3/24 Commemorating the Civil War Graham 2016; Joyce 2017; Shackel
2004; Osborne 2017
3/26
Remaking Black History in Revisionist History S2 E4 (podcast);
America Battle-Baptiste 2007
12 3/31 Heritage of Displaced Peoples De León 2015 (excerpts); Zhang 2017

Dawdy 2016 (excerpts); Berliner et al.

4/2 2018 PAPER # 2 DUE

12 4/7 War and the Strategic Destruction Curry 2015; Harmanşah 2015; Meskell
of Heritage Sites (Chs. 6-7)
4/9
Almukhtar 2016; Golden 2004
13 4/14 Music as Heritage Watch in class: Flight of the Condor
(video)

4/16 TBD
14 4/21 The Future of UNESCO Meskell (Ch. 8); Noyes 2015
4/23 Where do we do from here? Bendix 2018 (excerpts)
The Future of Heritage Studies
15 4/28 FINAL PRESENTATIONS
4/30 FINAL PRESENTATIONS FINAL PROJECT
DUE
5/5 Final Exam (2-4pm) FINAL EXAM

READING LIST
Almukhtar S. (2016) The Strategy Behind the Islamic State's Destruction of Ancient Sites. New York Times.

Archambault Sr. D. (2016) DAPL Destroys Sacred Grounds. Indian Country Today.

Arnold B. (1999) The Contested Past. Anthropology Today 15: 1-4.

Battle-Baptiste W. (2007) The Other From Within: A Commentary. In: Jameson JH and Baugher S (eds) Past Meets Present:
Archaeologists Partnering with Museum Curators, Teachers, and Community Groups. Springer, 101-106.

Bendix, RF. (2018). Culture and Value: Tourism, Heritage, and Property. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Bendix, RF., Eggert, A., and Peselmann, A. (2016). Heritage regimes and the state. Göttingen: Universitätsverlag Göttingen

Berliner, U., Cowan, A., Davis W., Harrell, P., Holmes, G., Kelly, C., Lancianese, A., May, M., and Schneider, A. (2018)
What They Took With Them As They Fled. National Public Radio.

Blackhawk N. (2006) Introduction. Violence over the Land: Indians and Empires in the Early American West. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press, 1-15.

Blake J. (2000) On Defining Cultural Heritage. The International and Comparative Law Quarterly 49: 61-85.

Boissoneault L. (2018) Genetics Rewrites the History of Early America—And, Maybe, the Field of Archaeology.

Page 4 of 6
 Smithsonian Magazine.

Colwell C. (2016) How the Archaeological Review Behind the Dakota Access Pipeline Went Wrong. The Conversation.

Curry A. (2015) Here are the Ancient Sites ISIS Has Damaged and Destroyed. National Geographic.

Dawdy, SL. (2016). Patina: a profane archaeology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

De León J. (2015) The Land of Open Graves: Living and Dying on the Migrant Trail, Berkeley University of California
Press.

Farah K and Seligson K. (2018) From Crystal Skulls to the Caste War: Intersections of Tourism, Archaeology and Heritage
in the Yucatán Peninsula of Mexico. Anthropology Now 10: 24-36.

Golden J. (2004) Targeting heritage: The abuse of symbolic sites in modern conflicts. In: Rowan YM and Baram U (eds)
Marketing Heritage: Archaeology and the Consumption of the Past Walnut Creek: Altamira Press, 183-202.

Graham DA. (2016) The Stubborn Persistence of Confederate Monuments. The Atlantic.

Greco J. (2016) Protecting "Negative Heritage" in Rwanda. The Pennsylvania Gazette. University of Pennsylvania.

Hafstein, VT. (2018). Making Intangible Heritage: El Condor Pasa and Other Stories from UNESCO. Bloomington: Indiana
University Press.

Hafstein, VT, and Skrydstrup, M. (2017) “Heritage vs. property." The Routledge Companion to Cultural Property.

Hamilakis Y. (1999) Stories from exile: Fragments from the cultural biography of the Parthenon (or Elgin) marbles. World
Archaeology 31.

Harmanşah Ö. (2015) ISIS, Heritage, and the Spectacles of Destruction in the Global Media. Near Eastern Archaeology 78:
170-177.

Henderson JC. (2000) War as a tourist attraction: the case of Vietnam. Int. J. Tourism Res. 2: 269-280

Joyce R. (2017) Losing the past or changing the future? Archaeologists and Modern Monuments. Berkeley: Berkeley Blog.

LaRoche CJ and Blakey ML. (1997) Seizing Intellectual Power: The Dialogue at the New York African Burial Ground.
Historical Archaeology 31: 84-106.

Lowenthal, D. (2015) "Stewardship, Sanctimony and Selfishness-A Heritage Paradox." History and Heritage Consuming the
Past in Contemporary Culture, 169-79.

Lowthorp, L. (2015) “Voices on the Ground: Kutiyattam, UNESCO, and the Heritage of Humanity.” In UNESCO on the
Ground: Local Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage, Bloomington: University of Indiana Press.

Mack ME, and Blakey ML. (2004) The New York African Burial Ground Project: Past Biases, Current Dilemmas, and
Future Research Opportunities. Historical Archaeology 38: 10-17.

Meskell L. (2002) Negative Heritage and Past Mastering in Archaeology. Anthropological Quarterly 75:557-574.

Meyer R. (2016) The Legal Case for Blocking the Dakota Access Pipeline. The Atlantic.

Moses, S. (2015). Stigmatized Space: Negative Heritage in Historic Preservation.

Noyes, D. (2015) “From Cultural Forms to Policy Objects: Comparison in Scholarship and Policy” In UNESCO on the
Ground: Local Perspectives on Intangible Cultural Heritage, Bloomington: University of Indiana Press.

Page 5 of 6
Osborne J. (2017) Counter-monumentality and the vulnerability of memory. Journal of Social Archaeology 17:163-187.

Overholtzer L and Argueta JR. (2018) Letting the Skeletons out of the Closet: the Ethics of Displaying Ancient Mexican
Human Remains. International Journal of Heritage Studies: 24(5):508-530.

Pi-Sunyer O and Thomas RB. (2015) Tourism and the Transformation of Daily Life Along the Riviera Maya of Quintana
Roo, Mexico. The Journal of Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology: 20(1):87-109.

Rico T. (2013) Negative Heritage: The Place of Conflict in World Heritage. Conservation and Management of
Archaeological Sites 10: 344-352.

Rosen E. (2015) How Young Vietnamese View the Vietnam War. The Atlantic.

Rothstein E. (2010) A Burial Ground and Its Dead Are Given Life. New York Times.

Sánchez JP. (2017) How The Parthenon Lost Its Marbles. History Magazine by National Geographic.

Schwenkel C. (2006) Recombinant History: Transnational Practices of Memory and Knowledge Production in Contemporary
Vietnam. Cultural Anthropology 21:3-30.

Shackel PA. (2004) Memory in Black and White: Race, Commemoration, and the Post-Bellum Landscape. Civil War Book
Review 6:1-7.

Yasaitis KE. (2006) Collecting Culture and the British Museum. Curator: The Museum Journal 49:449-462.

Zhang L. (2017) The American Dreamers. Folklife Magazine. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institute

WEB RESOURCES AND OTHER MEDIA

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie Ted Talk:
https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story#t-2945

UNESCO World Heritage convention: http://whc.unesco.org/archive/convention-en.pdf

NAGPRA: (https://www.nps.gov/archeology/tools/laws/nagpra.htm)

UnDone Podcast: E2 “The Ancient One”: https://www.gimletmedia.com/undone/2-the-ancient-one

Colwell Ted Talk: (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DJYS9C06_qY)

New York African Burial Ground Documentary: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jbCa_djSo6E

Standing Rock Timeline Map: (https://nycstandswithstandingrock.wordpress.com/standingrocksyllabus/)

DAPL Protests YouTube Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuZcx2zEo4k

Revisionist History Podcast: S2 E4 “The Foot Soldier of Birmingham”: http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/14-

the-foot-soldier-of-birmingham

Flight of the Condor Video: http://flightofthecondorfilm.com/

Page 6 of 6