We are very excited to announce our first keynote speaker!
Dr Mehiyar Kathem (Deputy Director of the Nahrein Network, University College London) will deliver the opening keynote talk on Thursday 23rd March entitled, "Critical consciousness, heritage trajectories and the liberation of Iraq’s cultural institutions".
Full abstract here:
How do cultural institutions ‘think’ in Iraq, and what can an analysis of their evolution over time tell us about the future of archaeology, Assyriology and cultural heritage in the country?
This presentation critically examines how Iraqi cultural institutions ‘think’ and give shape to specific practices within the field of cultural heritage. It will explain how configurations of power over time have shaped Iraq’s cultural heritage and its people. Political and state institutions inform how we think and interact with each other. Those interactions are embedded and carried through daily actions, often unwittingly. This presentation is interested less about the past as a historical inquiry and more on how actions and practices, and indeed ways of thinking within Iraqi cultural institutions, including in research, archaeological practices and in such field as Assyriology, have evolved over time.
In this presentation, those processes are examined through the concept of heritage trajectories - the ways in which recent histories, state institutions and politics are woven to produce tangible and identifiable cultural outcomes. Heritage trajectories can tell us much about the future, and where we are now. As a lens, heritage trajectories create space for thinking, including with a view to liberating Iraq from lethargic, colonial and dictatorship-shaped political and cultural structures.
The liberation of Iraq from the lingering impact of colonialism and its legacies, the influence of dictatorship and its embedded practices and ongoing cultural hegemony needs nothing less than the forging and embedding of critical consciousness as the single most important objective of Iraq’s cultural institutions.
Dr. Mehiyar Kathem
Deputy Director of the Nahrein Network
University College London
There is still time to register to attend the conference! Please fill out this Google form to register: forms.gle/rmJQsi45LuetZfMM7
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