This is a core and compulsory Semester 1 course for MA Heritage Studies. It provides students with both theoretical and professional knowledge and understanding of heritage practice, from a range of critical perspectives (empirical, spatial, political, technological &c).

Students embark on the MA Heritage Studies from a range of undergraduate subject areas, including Archaeology, Anthropology, History, Geography, Classics and English. This course is designed to enable a diverse cohort to develop a critical and practical understanding of heritage as sites of cultural production, by applying and extending their existing disciplinary skills and knowledge to the study of institutions, past and present. The understanding of ‘heritage’ is deliberately broad, encompassing built, natural and intangible heritage: the idea of the course is to identify commonalities and specificities across a breadth of disciplinary, organizational and professional models.

During the module, students are introduced to key concepts and issues in critical heritage thinking and practice. Each week focuses on a key concept and key words (e.g. authenticity, sustainability, memory, space/place &c) and includes also student-led activities, fieldwork and professional presentations. The idea is to stimulate critical reflection, as well as enable students to acquire nuanced and contextualized knowledge and understanding of some of the key intellectual, ethical, professional and political questions posed by, and of, heritage.

The aims of the unit are to:

1. Provide a critical introduction to the fields of contemporary heritage practice and critical heritage studies, both in the UK and internationally.

2. Equip students with thorough knowledge and understanding of the social, ethical, political and financial and historical contexts in which heritage organisations operate today.

3. Introduce and apply key concepts in heritage theory to the critical analysis of heritage practice.

4. Enable students to apply undergraduate disciplinary knowledge and understanding in appropriate institutional settings.

5. Prepare students for work-based practice through the interaction with heritage professionals and the opportunity to debate critical issues in policy and practice.

6. Develop students' skills in preparing and chairing meetings, conducting debate and facilitating discussion.

7. Develop students' research and written communication skills and styles.

The syllabus will address key topics and areas of theory and practice, including memory; dentity and values; loss and decay; emotion; authenticity; sustainability; intangibility and materiality; ; ethics; community, audiences and stakeholders.  

The course will be delivered through a combination of:

- University-based lectures and seminars

- Individual fieldwork

- Peer learning

- Student presentations

- Demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the field of contemporary heritage practice and the historical, social, ethical, political and financial contexts in which heritage organisations operate

- Analyse the development of ‘heritage’ and ‘heritage studies’ and their relationship with other fields of critical theory and practice

- Identify and evaluate diverse approaches to the theoretical and critical analysis of heritage.

- Lead and participate in informed debate about key issues affecting heritage policy and practice today.

- Demonstrate a capacity to apply theoretical and critical concepts to the understanding and analysis of institutional practice and the contexts in which the institution operates.

- Apply disciplinary knowledge and understanding to an analysis of institutional policies and practices.

- Conduct independent research in order to produce a sustained, analytical enquiry into an aspect of heritage theory practice.

- Design, research and present empirical research, determining and implementing a reflexive and appropriate methodology.

- Apply skills and ideas learned in one institutional context to another, while remaining aware of the complexity of the issues.

- Identify, describe and document different types of heritage expression and materialisation.

- Apply research methods to understand audiences and design, manage and evaluate heritage projects.

- Collaborate effectively with fellow students.

- Prepare and deliver a short oral presentation, and respond to questions and discussions.

- Conduct effective fieldwork as part of an institutional analysis.

- Plan and deliver presentations, chair discussions, provide feedback.

- Communicate information and ideas effectively in a professional, as well as an academic, environment.

- Retrieve, select and critically evaluate information from a variety of sources, including museums, archives, libraries and the Web.

- Work effectively within a team.

- Anheier, Hl, and Y. Raj Isar (eds). 2011. Heritage, Memory and Identity. London: Sage

- Benton, Tim. 2010. Understanding Heritage and Memory. Manchester: Manchester University Press

- Boswell, Davis and Evans, Jessica (eds). 1999. Representing the nation: a reader: histories, heritage and museums, London and New York: Routledge

- Cameron, F. And S. Kerendine. 2007. Theorizing Digital Cultural Heritage. A Critical Discourse, Cambridge, Massachusetts; London, England: The MIT Press. 

- Choay, F. 2001, The Invention of the Historic Monument, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

- Funari, P., M. Hall & S. Jones (eds), 1999. Historical Archaeology: back from the edge. London: Routledge.

- Giaccardi, Elisa. 2012. Heritage and Social Media: Understanding heritage in a participatory culture. Routledge.

- Harrison R, DeSilvey C, Holtorf C, Macdonald S, Bartolini N, Breithoff E, Fredheim H, Lyons A, May S, Morgan J, Penrose S. 2020. Heritage Futures: Comparative Approaches to Natural and Cultural Heritage Practices. UCL.

- Harrison, R. 2012. Heritage: Critical Approaches. Routledge

- Harrison, R. 2008. Understanding the Politics of Heritage. Manchester: Manchester University Press

- Hems, A. 2005. Heritage Interpretation: Theory and Practice. Routledge

- Hodder, I. 1991. Reading the Past. Current approaches to interpretation in archaeology, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

- Hoffman, Barbara T., ed. 2006. Art and cultural heritage: Law, policy, and practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.

- Howard, P. 2003, Heritage. Management, Interpretation, Identity, London; New York: Continuum.

- Kalay, Y. E., T. Kvan and J. Afflect (eds). 2008. New Heritage. New Media and Cultural Heritage. London and New York: Routledge.

- Littler, J. and R. Naido (eds). 2005. The Politics of Heritage: The Legacies of ‘Race’. London: Routledge

- Lowenthall, D. 1985. The Past is a Foreign Country, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

- Macdonald, S. 2008. Difficult Heritage: Negotiating the Nazi Past in Nuremberg and Beyond. Routledge

- Peckham, R.S. (ed.) 2003. Rethinking Heritage. Cultures and Politics in Europe. London: I.B. Tauris

- Ridge, Mia (ed) Crowdsourcing our cultural heritage, Ashgate, 2014

- Rowan, Y. and U. Baram. 2005. Marketing heritage, archaeology and the consumption of the past. Walnut Creek: AltaMira Press.

- Skeates, Robin. 2000. Debating the archaeological heritage. London: Duckworth.

- Smith, L. 2012. All Heritage is Intangible: Critical Heritage Studies and Museums

- Smith, L, Shackel, P & Campbell, G, eds, 2011. Heritage, Labour and the Working Classes, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, Abingdon UK.

Smith, C., Smith, G