Call for Papers: Trans-Atlantic Dialogues on Cultural Heritage: Heritage, Tourism and Traditions

Trans-Atlantic dialogues on cultural heritage began as early as the voyages of Leif Ericson and Christopher Columbus and continue through the present day. Each side of the Atlantic offers its own geographical and historical specificities expressed and projected through material and immaterial heritage. However, in geopolitical terms and through everyday mobilities, people, objects and ideas flow backward and forward across the ocean, each shaping the heritage of the other, for better or worse, and each shaping the meanings and values that heritage conveys.

This conference is brought to you by the Ironbridge International Institute for Cultural Heritage (IIICH), University of Birmingham and the Collaborative for Cultural Heritage Management and Policy (CHAMP), University of Illinois and offers a venue for exploring three critical interactions in this trans-Atlantic dialogue: heritage, tourism and traditions.

The goal of the conference is to be simultaneously open-ended and provocative. We welcome papers from academics across a wide range of disciplines including anthropology, archaeology, art history, architecture, business, communication, ethnology, heritage studies, history, geography, landscape architecture, literary studies, media studies, museum studies, popular culture,  postcolonial studies, sociology, tourism, urban studies, etc. 

Topics of interest to the conference include, but are not limited to, the following:

• The heritage of trans-Atlantic encounters
• Travelling intangible heritages
• Heritage flows of popular culture
• Re-defining heritage beyond the postcolonial
• The heritage of Atlantic crossings
• World Heritage of the Atlantic periphery
• Rooting and routing heritage
• Community and Nation on display
• Visualising the Trans-Atlantic world

Abstracts of 300 words with full contact details should be sent as soon as possible but no later than 15th December 2014 to ironbridge@contacts.bham.ac.uk

Further information on the Conference and the Call for Papers can be found on the website www.transatlanticdialogues.wordpress.com

NEW EVENT: Second Asia-Pacific regional conference on Underwater Cultural Heritage

12 - 16 May 2014, Honolulu, HI, USA

Hosted by the National Marine Sanctuary Foundation and University of Hawaii Marine Option Program

The 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Cultural Heritage (UNESCO Convention 2001) entered into force on 2 January 2009 and now provides a basis for international cooperation and exchange of knowledge about underwater cultural heritage.

Recent decades have witnessed an expansion of activity directed at underwater cultural heritage which has raised awareness of its potential and significance. Underwater cultural heritage is complex, combining related disciplines and issues critical to our time. Consideration of indigenous cultural values, heritage tourism, biological interactions, socio-economic benefits, and threats from increased development, industrial extraction, certain diving activities, and even sea-level rise and erosion, continue to shape our understanding of this field. Our reliance on marine resources and need for ocean stewardship encourages government agencies, heritage groups, coastal zone managers, diving groups and other ocean users to formulate a better approach to investigating and managing non-renewable underwater cultural heritage.

This conference provides an opportunity to discuss the nature and meaning and potential of underwater cultural heritage, and to exchange and disseminate information about heritage and underwater/maritime archaeology projects from the countries of Asia and the countries of the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

This Conference is endorsed by numerous supporting organizations including IGOs, NGOs, government agencies, museums and universities.

Conference Aims

•  Address management and protection strategies of underwater cultural heritage in Asia
   and the countries of the Indian and Pacific Oceans in the 21st Century
•  Facilitate regional cooperation through the development of academic and
   governmental networks in the Asia-Pacific region
•  Provide a forum for discussion of technical and ethical issues related to underwater
   cultural heritage and underwater archaeology

For further information please visit the APCONF Conference website.