EUROPAEUM Summer School: The Politics of Heritage

Start date
End date
Location
KU Leuven

The Leiden-Delft-Erasmus Centre for Global Heritage and Development is partner in the

EUROPAEUM Summer School: The Politics of Heritage

Debates and struggles to do with historical memory are front and centre of politics in our era.  From destruction of artifacts during wars, to the contestation of the heritage left behind by the colonial era, to the omnipresence of Second World War in the conversations about security in Europe, there are myriads of examples of how the past is reflected in the present. Scholars, activist network operating on the Internet and offline, social movements on a local, national, regional and global scale, political leaders, governments have all been instrumentalising, interrogating, reimagining, or challenging heritage. Questions about power, historical justice, and responsibility and moral obligation, at the individual and collective level, have inevitably been at the core of all these processes.  The Summer School organised by the Europaeum in partnership with the KU Leuven (and (Leiden, Barcelona?)) will explore the complex issues of heritage, in both its material and ideational dimensions, with a special focus on Europe’s tangled relationship with the non-Western world in the colonial period and after.   It will do so from the conceptual and methodological vantage point of a variety of disciplines, including History, Archaeology, Social Anthropology, Law, Politics and International Relations. This summer school – the 29th in our series – will bring together scholars and experts from across the Europaeum network and beyond, to discuss this urgent topic over five days of talks, panels, working groups, debates, role-playing, and discussions.

Information and registration options available in the first week of June. Please check the EUROPAEUM website.