HERITAGE: POLITICS AND PRACTICES IN THE ISLAMIC WORLD

This course constitutes one of the educational activities of the master's degree programmes in Language and Civilisation of Asia and Mediterranean Africa (Near and Middle East); in Transmediterranean Studies: Migration, Cooperation and Development; in Ancient Civilisations: Literature, History and Archaeology. It broadens the student's knowledge and ability to analyse and understand Near and Middle Eastern cultures and societies by looking at cultural heritage, archaeology in particular, and its role in the identity building of communities and states. Through a series of case-studies, the student will understand the process of heritage and identity building and its relation to politics, from the colonial and imperialist perspectives, to the establishment of nationalism, to the rise of de-colonization process.

The student will acquire knowledge and skills to analyse and deconstruct the process of patrimonialisation in the Near and Middle East initiated by colonial powers and carried on by nation-states up to the most recent perspectives of decolonisation. He/she will come to understand and deconstruct the complex dynamics that have shaped the practice and ethics of archaeological research and led to the setting of specific policies of preservation, valorisation and musealisation of heritage in the context of the great changes that have affected the Near and Middle Eastern regions.

The course does not require specific competences.

The main themes developed in the course:
- the birth of archaeology in the Near East: colonial policy and patrimonialisation; the creation of Mesopotamia; the imperialist museum.
- cultural heritage and nation building: the case of Iraq, from monarchy to Saddam; Mustafa Kemal's Turkey
- epistemology of conservation and restoration practices; the value of authenticity; the community and its culture
- international community and heritage protection: from colonialism to UNESCO; destruction, looting, restitution
CASE-STUDY
- Contested identities: the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, heritage of Islam?
- Conservation and preservation for the community: Darb al-Ahmar in Cairo
- Heritage building in Qatar between Islamic art, ethnography and oil

to be found on MOODLE platform:

AAVV, The Azhar Park Project in Cairo and the Conservation and Revitalization of Darb al-Ahmar, The Agha Khan Trust for Culture, on-line publication

Ç. Atakuman, Cradle or crucible: Anatolia and archaeology in the early years of the Turkish Republic (1923-1938), Journal of Social Archaeology 2008, pp. 214-235

Zainab Bahrani, Conjuring Mesopotamia. Imaginative geography and a world past, in Lynn Meskell (ed.) Archaeology Under Fire. Nationalism, politics and heritage in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East, London and New York 1998, pp. 159-174

Matteo Benussi, The golden cage: heritage, (ethnic) Muslimness,and the place of Islam in post-Soviet Tatarstan, Religion, State & Society 49:4-5, 2021, pp. 314-330

M. T. Bernhardsson, Archaeology and Nationalism in Iraq, 1921-2003, in R. Boytner, L. Swartz Dodd, B. J. Parker (eds) Controlling the Past, Owning the Future, Tucson, 2010, pp. 55-67

Joachìn Marìa Còrdoba, On the Iraq Museum and Other Assaults Brief News about the Plundering of lraqi Museums and the Systematic Looting of lraqi Archaeological Heritage, ISIMU III, 2000 (publication date?), pp. 15-22

R. Daher e I. Maffi, Introduction, in R. Daher e I. Maffi (eds) The politics and practices of cultural heritage in the Middle East, London 2014, pp. 1-38

Chiara Dezzi Bardeschi, Archeologia e Conservazione, Milano 2007: Il dibattito sull’autenticità, pp. 227 e 230

Marco Dezzi Bardeschi, Il valore discriminante dell'autenticità prima e dopo Nara, ANAGK 52, 2007, pp. 70- 73

M. Diaz-Andreu, Guest editor's introduction. Nationalism and archaeology, Nations and Nationalism 7 (4), 2001, 429-440

Kristin A. Eggeling, Cultural diplomacy in Qatar: Between ‘virtual enlargement’, national identity construction and elite legitimation, International Journal of Cultural Policy 23 (2) 2017, pp. 1-15

EMEK SHAVEH (ONG), TheTemple Mount/ Haram al-Sharif – Archaeology in a Political Context, pubblicazione on-line (http://alt-arch.org/en/ )

Karen Exell & Trinidad Rico, ‘There is no heritage in Qatar’: Orientalism, colonialism and other problematic histories, World Archaeology 45 (4) 2013, pp. 670-685

Karen Exell, Desiring the past and reimagining the present: contemporary collecting in Qatar, Museum & Society 14 (2) 2016, pp. 259-274

Maria Pia Guermandi, Decolonizzare il patrimonio: Cap. 3. UNESCO, un patrimonio universale con un’anima occidentale, Roma 2021, pp. 82-106

Ömür Harmanşah, ISIS, Heritage, and the Spectacles of Destruction in the Global Media, Near Eastern Archaeology78 (3), Special Issue: The Cultural Heritage Crisis in the Middle East (September 2015), pp. 170-177

Daniel Hull, Orientalism: Islamic Archaeology and Its Colonial Context, in Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology 2013(on-line)

Marxiano Melotti, Turismo archeologico. Dalle piramidi alle veneri di plastica, Milano, Mondadori, 2008: capitoli selezionati

Stephennie Mulder, War and Recovery, The Oxford Handbook of Islamic Archaeology, Oxford 2020, pp. 707-730

David Shankland, Afterword: Heritage, Nationalism and Archaeology in the Republic of Turkey, in S. Redford and N. Ergin (eds.) Perceptions of The Past in the Turkish Republic: Classical and Byzantine Periods, Leuven, 2010, pp. 225-236

A. D. Smith, Authenticity, antiquity and archaeology, Nations and Nationalism 7 (4), 2001, pp. 441-449

Lauso Zagato, Simona Pinton, Marco Giampieretti, Lezioni di diritto internazionale ed europeo del patrimonio culturale: Protezione e Salvaguardia, Venezia 2017: cap. 3, pp. 33-67
Lauso Zagato e Simona Pinton, Lezioni di diritto internazionale ed europeo del patrimonio culturale 2: Circolazione e restituzione, Venezia, 2018: capp. 8, 11

Learning is verified in two complementary ways:
A) 35% of final mark
The student is required to submit an essay at least one week before the day of the oral examination; this essay should focus on an archaeological site of his/her choice, agreed with the teacher or it may develop a specific topic. In this work the student will have to show that he/she has acquired the necessary critical skills and tools to understand the whole process of patrimonialisation, from research to valorisation, in the contexts of the local politics and practices, with a critical apprach.
B) 65% of final mark)
During the oral exam, students will be asked to illustrate some of the topics covered in the lesson, with the help of images. This part of the exam aims to verify that the student has acquired basic knowledge of the subjects and case studies discussed, and adequate critical skills to deal with their study.

Face-to-face lessons will be illustrated with images, available on the MOODLE e-learning platform. Part of the course will be seminar-based, and students will be asked to contribute to discussions on the basis of an assigned reading list.

Italian

written and oral

This subject deals with topics related to the macro-area "International cooperation" and contributes to the achievement of one or more goals of U. N. Agenda for Sustainable Development