Heritage and Presence Humanities Symposium

What is the relationship between heritage—a set of shared articulations and sensations of the past—and our lived realities? How do efforts to construct and erase these shared understandings impact the possibilities of a shared and shareable present? These questions have acquired new urgency over the past several years as historical formations of plantation slavery, settler-colonialism, and extractive capitalism become increasingly recognizable in the mundane operations of the university and the state; heritage claims fuel political violence and mass social movements; and supposedly unifying nationalisms deteriorate into entrenched positions around ownership of the past. Of course, for those most harmed by the projects of white supremacist heteropatriarchy these questions have always been urgent—matters of presence in the face of ongoing erasure—complicating easy distinctions between past, present, and future. In this multidisciplinary symposium, scholars, community organizers, and artists come together to unsettle the demarcations between heritage as an object of study and heritage as a site of ongoing practice and contestation.

More info: https://wolfhumanities.upenn.edu/events/heritage-and-presence