Cultural Legacies

Instructor:  Brian E. McConnell

Course Description:  World heritage and cultural patrimony are buzzwords in the media today, as public and private concerns focus on the preservation and presentation of archaeological finds, art collections, and the places that were important in history.  There is no question that such legacies constitute important resources on a world-wide scale, and the issues raised in dealing with them often focus on the present as much as the past.  This course will address these issues through several familiar case studies.  Guiding questions include: Who owns the past? When space is limited, what deserves eminent domain?  What role do ancient remains make in modern identities?  How much is that picture in the window?

Six Lectures

1.  The Living Dead City of Pompeii.  Art History and Archaeology had their start at this well-known archaeological site, which today, as envisioned in many works of literature and even music, once again lives through the life-blood of cultural tourism.
2.  The Bamyan Buddhas and Islamic Iconoclasm.  The destruction of these important monuments in Afghanistan by the Taliban fits less the nature of Islamic iconoclasm than it does the realities of the modern television age.  Should they be rebuilt?
3.  Mediterranean Archaeology and Modern Nationalism.  The political geography of the Mediterranean and surrounding regions in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has been influenced profoundly by images and notions derived from a century of archaeological research.
4.  ‘Hoving’s Pot’ and Other Hot Items.  The historic agreement in 2007 to return to the Republic of Italy the famous Kalyx krater painted by Euphronios, which has been on display in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art since the 1970’s, is cause to discuss the ownership of cultural properties and international responsibilities.
5.  Ancient Mounds and 60’s Minimalism in America.  The treatment of America’s ancient monumental architecture and the development of Land Art as a genre is an important relationship within the environmental movement of the 1960’s and ‘70’s.
6.  Klimt Verklempt.  What would the Viennese artist have said about the confiscation of his painting of Adele Bloch-Bauer or its recent sale of $135 million?  This lecture explores the present appeal of Vienna Secession art and culture.

Biographical Information: Dr. Brian E. McConnell is a member of the Department of Visual Arts & History at Florida Atlantic University, where he teaches Art History and Classical Archaeology.  He holds degrees from Dartmouth College and Brown University, and he has over two decades of experience in the research and management of cultural resources in the Mediterranean.  He is the author of many articles and several monographs, many focused on the archaeology of ancient Sicily.