Heritage: Law, Ethics, Policy
This course was available in the past and may be presented again as part of the Master of Liberal Arts curriculum.
What is worthy of preservation, and why? What kinds of relationship to the past, to memory and forgetting, are at stake in defining heritage? What are the different ways of categorizing the kinds of heritage, and what distinct problems of preservation do these different kinds of heritage present? What ethical principles can help guide the way we deal with heritage controversies? Should the government be involved in heritage protection, and if so, why? What tools of government action -- criminalization, incentivization, regulation, etc. -- have been used to preserve heritage in various situations, and with what consequences? We will take up these questions through a series of case studies ranging from the Elgin Marbles debate to the confrontations over confederate monuments to the designation of a "whistling language" and the struggle over whether tribes or scientists should have control of the body of an ancient Native American.
- Fulfills the Elective - Ethics and Leadership requirement
- Fulfills the Elective - General requirement
- This course is a part of the Ethics and Leadership concentration