Thread by @MichaelDPress, Tracing the development of the link between cultural heritage and foreign policy [...]

Michael Press

MichaelDPress

Tracing the development of the link between cultural heritage and foreign policy objectives (often euphemized as "national security") is really important, but why do these discussions always have to treat that link as a positive? https://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/state-of-the-art-how-cultural-property-became-a-national-security-priority

State of the Art: How Cultural Property Became a National-Security Priority

Until recently, the United States did little to help repatriate looted antiquities, thanks to a powerful coalition of art collectors, museums, and numismatists who preferred an unregulated art...

https://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/state-of-the-art-how-cultural-property-became-a-national-security-priority

As with human rights, the developing link between cultural heritage & "national security" over the past 20 years has meant that, more and more, cultural heritage is used cynically to justify bombings, invasion, and occupation. https://hyperallergic.com/415471/how-antiquities-have-been-weaponized-in-the-struggle-to-preserve-culture/

How Antiquities Have Been Weaponized in the Struggle to Preserve Culture

Surveying the reporting on Syrian antiquities over the last six years reveals a parade of errors, but it is noteworthy that most, if not all, of the errors cut in the same way: to inflate the threat...

https://hyperallergic.com/415471/how-antiquities-have-been-weaponized-in-the-struggle-to-preserve-culture/

On September 22, 2014, the Met's lavish opening ceremony for its Assyria to Iberia exhibition included a speech by then-Secretary of State John Kerry obsessed w/ISIS & its destruction of heritage.

Hours later, the US started its bombing campaign in Syria

Even as description of how this link has developed has its problems, as discussed here:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/410281482394332/permalink/3106449416110845/

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