2023
Heritage Critical Studies
Name: Heritage Critical Studies
Code: HIS12105L
3 ECTS
Duration: 15 weeks/78 hours
Scientific Area:
History
Teaching languages: Portuguese
Languages of tutoring support: Portuguese
Regime de Frequência: Presencial
Sustainable Development Goals
Learning Goals
To address heritage from a critical perspective, in conceptual, epistemological and intellectual terms.
To familiarize students with the new heritage notions, related with the most recent issues of critical
museology, material and visual culture and theory, post-colonialism, globalization, memory and
anthropology studies.
To provide students with the ability to problematize the knowledge acquired during their academic training
in the light of the most actual theoretical perspectives and debates on cultural heritage.
It is intended to make students to be able to think the heritage concepts, categories and speeches outside
of the dominant doctrines and in different contexts, with alternative intellectual and methodological
frameworks, in order to enable them to reconsider the values, the practices, the ethics and the heritage
policies.
To familiarize students with the new heritage notions, related with the most recent issues of critical
museology, material and visual culture and theory, post-colonialism, globalization, memory and
anthropology studies.
To provide students with the ability to problematize the knowledge acquired during their academic training
in the light of the most actual theoretical perspectives and debates on cultural heritage.
It is intended to make students to be able to think the heritage concepts, categories and speeches outside
of the dominant doctrines and in different contexts, with alternative intellectual and methodological
frameworks, in order to enable them to reconsider the values, the practices, the ethics and the heritage
policies.
Contents
1. Introduction: critical perspectives on cultural heritage: the Association of Critical Heritage Studies
manifesto.
2. Ideologies and contemporary heritage policies: who decides what is heritage, how and why.
2.1 Policies and past uses: Memory, History and Forgetting.
2.2 Conflict, loss and conservation.
2.3 Eurocentrism, post-colonialism and globalization.
2.4 Universalism, nationalism, regionalism and the local
2.5 Capitalism and Neo-liberalism.
2.6 Identity and Otherness.
3. Practices and contemporary uses of heritage under discussion.
3.1 The tangible and the intangible.
3.2 Heritage and communities.
3.3 Heritage and development: crisis and sustainability.
3.4 Heritage and Tourism.
3.5 Negative Heritage.
3.6 Shared Heritage.
3.7 Digital Heritage.
3.8 Critical Conservation.
3.9 Heritage and Creation.
3.10 The new heritage assets.
manifesto.
2. Ideologies and contemporary heritage policies: who decides what is heritage, how and why.
2.1 Policies and past uses: Memory, History and Forgetting.
2.2 Conflict, loss and conservation.
2.3 Eurocentrism, post-colonialism and globalization.
2.4 Universalism, nationalism, regionalism and the local
2.5 Capitalism and Neo-liberalism.
2.6 Identity and Otherness.
3. Practices and contemporary uses of heritage under discussion.
3.1 The tangible and the intangible.
3.2 Heritage and communities.
3.3 Heritage and development: crisis and sustainability.
3.4 Heritage and Tourism.
3.5 Negative Heritage.
3.6 Shared Heritage.
3.7 Digital Heritage.
3.8 Critical Conservation.
3.9 Heritage and Creation.
3.10 The new heritage assets.
Teaching Methods
The course will have two methodologies: 10 hours of lectures by the coordinator teacher and 20 hours of
classes in a conference system, where a guest speaker introduces a topic, followed by a debate. In order to
promote a participatory dynamic of the students, they should prepare two questions for the speaker.
The evaluation:
1 written test (to be held after 10 hours of lectures);
participation in the debates;
weekly reports of the conferences and debates (one A4 page).
classes in a conference system, where a guest speaker introduces a topic, followed by a debate. In order to
promote a participatory dynamic of the students, they should prepare two questions for the speaker.
The evaluation:
1 written test (to be held after 10 hours of lectures);
participation in the debates;
weekly reports of the conferences and debates (one A4 page).
Teaching Staff
- Paulo Alexandre Rodrigues Simões Rodrigues [responsible]
