Culture in Peril Recognized by KIT

Culture in Peril was recently listed by the Royal Tropical Institute (KIT) of Amsterdam, Netherlands, as a recommended resource for its Heritage and Illicit Trade dossier. Daan van Dartel describes the Dutch organization's research initiative as "a broader look at one of the largest international crime-areas." It is truly an honor have my blog linked alongside websites for the Association for Research into Crimes Against Art (ARCA), the Museum Security Network, UNESCO publications, and Interpol, to name a few.

After looking back on my first blog post, where I wrote, "It is an underlying premise of Culture in Peril that the loss of this shared heritage is, ultimately, a serious hindrance to the mutual understanding and acceptance of world cultures," I am (pleasantly) surprised that Culture in Peril has been placed in this group. Retrospectively I think I was making a weak attempt there to defend, or at least state the nature of, our basic universal human right to cultural heritage. I realize I have been reporting on heritage issues on a somewhat more local level (e.g. Coney Island, the Imperial War Museum, Santa Fe) in hopes that this perspective can illuminate aspects of cultural heritage issues on a global level. I am proud that such recognition from KIT points to Culture in Peril's success at relating localized stories like these to an international audience.

Hopefully it is not just the members of the Royal Tropical Institute who are finding my blog an accessible, coherent, and valuable resource. My goal for everybody, all readers, and yes myself, will be to make it onto KIT's list of websites in the Cultural Heritage International dossier. I think this is ultimately where my discussion will have the most value.

Bronze Statue Honors Pittsburgh's Friendliest Neighbor

The city of Pittsburgh (Pennsylvania, USA) recently unveiled a 10-foot, $3 million bronze statue of its hometown hero, everybody's friendly neighbor, Fred "Mister" Rogers. From 1968 to 2001, Fred Rogers was the host of the PBS program, "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood," which was filmed in Pittsburgh. It has been seven years since he passed, and almost two years since PBS stopped airing episodes, but Pittsburghers have not forgotten the mild mannered man who, while changing from sport coat and loafers to a zippered sweater and sneakers at the beginning of every episode, sang to their children, "It's a beautiful day in the neighborhood...won't you be my neighbor?" His "Neighborhood"--on the opening credits it is entirely made of toys and cardboard--was a place where all viewers, even beyond his regular 2 1/2 to 5 1/2 year old fans, were taught life's most valuable lessons: self-esteem, self-control, imagination, creativity, curiosity, appreciation of diversity, cooperation, tolerance for waiting, and persistence. Mister Rogers was a brilliant story teller and a beautiful source of comfort for children, and his ability to engage and interact with even the most passionately imaginative young minds should be seen as a public service of the highest order.

To make his legacy ever lasting, Pittsburgh commissioned a giant statue of Mister Rogers in his signature pose of tying up his sneakers. Officially named "Tribute to Children," the statue will encourage generations of children to climb upon his lap. Allegheny County Executive Dan Onorato proudly stated, "I can't think of a better symbol to promote Pittsburgh to the world than Fred Rogers."

This story of Fred Rogers' statue is a compelling example of a community appropriating its identity through the nativity of one of its important group members. As an innovator in children's educational entertainment, Mister Rogers is a widely recognized and important cultural symbol in America. Pittsburgh does have a number of famous natives, however not all of them are memorialized with a larger-than-life statue displayed on a prominent boardwalk in the city. To create a monument as such is to successfully honor Mister Rogers' legacy as a key part of Pittsburgh's heritage. Moreover, the statue formally acknowledges his contributions to children's developmental media. Just as the bronze statues of the Peanuts characters found throughout St. Paul, Minnesota, are a tribute to Charles Schulz's cartoons, the Fred Rogers statue is a tribute to the man who taught children not only how to set the table and to not to be afraid of being sucked down the bathtub drain, but also that there is much to learn in life so long as we all are responsible and open-minded individuals. This statue is a way of saying, without words, that the simplest lessons of our childhood can have the most formative impact on our future identities as global citizens, that sometimes the most authentic experience of being human is, to paraphrase his words at the end of every episode, to be special.

The statue is not intended to be a pilgrimage destination or a place likened to a grave site (although it may very well to become one after this week's "Fred Forward" conference at the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children's Media); rather, as Mrs. Rogers envisions it, it will serve as a place of remembrance, "a place for families in the best sort of way."

Or, as Mister Rogers himself would say, "It's a neighborly day in this beauty wood."

Master of Arts in..."Cultural Sustainability"?

To be sure, the current economic recession has had far-reaching effects even beyond the financial sector. The negative repercussions of the downturn in our economy has unfortunately trickled down into academia as well. In the academic world, and in the little known field of heritage studies especially, the number of openings in PhD programs has diminished severely--with total applications only increasing--and the amount of money being "invested" in postgraduate research has all but dried up. (In the last two months alone, I have sat in on a lecture about how to write a CV for jobs in the cultural sector and attended an Institute of Archaeology event titled "Career in Ruins," about archaeology careers in academia, consultancy, government, museums, and in the field.)

Still, I am thrilled at recent signs pointing towards the versatility of a postgraduate education. My most recent find: the Master of Arts in Cultural Sustainability offered by Goucher College (Baltimore, MD, USA). The description of the MACS reads,

"We teach our students how to work closely with individuals and communities to identify, protect, and enhance their important traditions, their ways of life, their cherished spaces, and their vital relationships to each other and the world. In this era of increasing homogeneity and globalization, local history, traditions, and ways of life are among our most endangered resources and precious assets. By strengthening and building on the foundations of these resources (their emphasis)--whether artistic, linguistic, musical, economic, or environmental--we can begin to counter the powerful forces that endanger communities around the world."

[Here is the original NYTimes article in which I first heard of Goucher's Cultural Sustainability master's program. Here is a link to their blog, Cultural Sustainability.]

Zimbabwe's "Lost" Jewish Tribe

The all-too-popular myth of "lost" tribes of humans is an enchanting one. When in recent years the chance discovery of one of these mysterious indigenous groups actually becomes a reality, news stories have been keen to capture the anthropological significance and implications of these rare cultural interactions. People, I think, are naturally, genuinely interested in the "Other", and hence it often through the widespread exposure of these major discoveries that society is made aware of the real and massive ongoing threats to world culture.

In a February post, Culture in Peril highlighted an inspiring Wade Davis lecture titled "The Wayfinders: Why Ancient Wisdom Matters in the Modern World." Davis, whose Explorer-in-Residence position at National Geographic has allowed him to actually live with these kinds of tribes for years at a time, soundly acknowledges the overwhelming threats to humankind's Ethnosphere. As the consummate participant-observer, perhaps Davis, who so regularly and intimately witnesses cultural destruction, can best testify to the impermanence of human culture. Still, Davis has an ultra-positive and simply infectious outlook on the perpetuity--or adaptability?--of humans' shared heritage. [For shame if you haven't watched his SALT Lecture, here's the link.]

Sufficiently inspired by Davis' hopeful views, Culture in Peril would like to draw attention to the Lemba people of Zimbabwe and South Africa, an indigenous African tribe that practices an ancient form of Judaism.

The Lemba, a Bantu-speaking ethnic group of 70,000, have Jewish ancestry dating back to as old as 3,000 years ago. Geneticists have done Y-chromosomal analyses with Lemba members and found that the priestly Lemba clan, the Buba, have a common ancestor who lived somewhere in north Arabia during the time of Moses, Aaron, and the founding of the Jewish priesthood in the Holy Land. Linguistically, their sacred prayer language is a mixture of Hebrew and Arabic, probably of Israeli and Yemeni descent. Even their most sacred oral traditions and ritual practices are more Semitic than African. Barring creationist theory and similar conservative, anti-evolutionist views of human origins, it is difficult to deny the definite Jewish roots of the Lemba.

From a material cultural studies perspective, a compelling feature of the Lemba story is how much of their group's identity is constituted in the communal spirituality around the ngoma lungundu, "the drum that thunders." This religious artifact is believed to be the Biblical Ark of the Covenant made by Moses. According to one Lemba elder, "[It] came from the temple in Jerusalem. We carried it down here through Africa." The centrality of the beating drum in traditional African religious rituals is recalled even in the Lemba name for the ngoma: in Lemba tradition, having withstood the the hardships over twenty-five millenia, this thundering drum is the sign of their Jewish ancestry. Indeed tremendous pride is instilled in the prized artifact: the Lemba see it as a tangible, living symbol of their ethnic link to ancient Judaism. It is evidence of their rich cultural pedigree which they share with Jews who had lived in the Holy Land over 2,500 years ago.

Zimbabwe duly acknowledged Lemba heritage as a part of its national cultural landscape when the sacred relic--OK, a replica--recently went on display in Harare, the nation's capital. The event was well received by the public, with large crowds attending the unveiling and lectures about Lemba culture.

I think this vast outpouring of media attention offers largely a positive turn towards cultural inclusiveness and mutual understanding. Locally, Lemba religious leaders claim that such recognition is "a starting point" for their community, some members of which are just beginning to recognize their own rich cultural history. Furthermore, the Lemba ethnic identity is legitimized by being showcased on a national level in Zimbabwe's capital, as much a political move act as social gesture. And, further still, the world is certainly enriched by the knowing that a person's cultural heritage runs deeper than outward appearance alone.

I think Wade Davis would agree that just to publicize the story of a tribe of African Jews is to verify their heritage value. We can all be "facilitators of cultural survival" by sharing this story with someone else, even if we had never even heard of the Lemba, because knowing is to make real and important.

U.S. Returns Ancient Egyptian Sarcophagus

An interesting case of cultural property repatriation occurred recently between the United States and Egypt. The U.S. returned a 3,000-year-old ancient wooden sarcophagus to the Arab Republic of Egypt in a ceremony hosted by the National Geographic Society in Washington, D.C. Two federal agencies, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), were clued into the artifact's sketchy background after it was intercepted at Miami International Airport in 2008. Their two-year international investigation eventually led them to interview the Spanish Gallery responsible for exporting the sarcophagus. When evidence of legal export--that is, a credible provenance detailed in the proper paperwork--could not be furnished by either importer or the gallery, ICE and CBP determined that the ancient sarcophagus was the stolen cultural property of Egypt and so belonged to the Egyptian people.

CBP Assistant Commissioner Allen Gina said about the repatriation, "Through the facilitation and enforcement of U.S. trade laws, this artifact will provide the Egyptian people a key to their past. Customs and Border Protection is pleased to work in partnership with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to enforce U.S. customs law and to return priceless artifacts to their lawful owner."

While not all instances of repatriation end so quickly and painlessly, this particular example indicates that some great progress is ongoing between international governments of two key nations in the illicit antiquities trade--The U.S. "market" and its "source" Egypt. As a major art importing and consuming nation, the United States, for certain, receives a mixed approval rating in regards to its stance on international cultural property issues. As a student of Cultural Heritage Studies, I am comforted in knowing that my home country is beginning to take a leadership role in the repatriation of Egyptian antiquities illicitly acquired on the market.

Museum Study Rooms Are For Everyone

On a recent visit to the British Museum with my Antiquities and the Law course, a classmate and I decided to check out the Prints and Drawings Department. According to their website, "The collection covers the history of drawing and printmaking as fine arts [from the fifteenth century up to the present day], with large holdings of the works of important artists such as Dürer, Michelangelo, Raphael, Rembrandt and Goya." With approximately 50,000 drawings and over two million prints, the department is home to one the finest collections of this kind in the world. Not knowing this at the time, we entered the Prints and Drawings Study Room literally just to see if we could get in.

Sure enough, with only a photo ID we were able to access the Study Room and all of its resources. We used a computer to search the collection's database (not that intuitive actually) and, after realizing we had no particular work in mind, requested to see Francesco Bartolozzi's The Last Judgment. The print came in a large folio with about six other Last Judgments, all done after Michelangelo's original. The works were beautiful and centuries-old and, yes, fragile. Yet we were able to view and handle these pieces, and any others, for as long as we liked, all without the supervision of a department worker.

Such free and open interaction with this extraordinary collection--the Study Room is available to anyone--got me thinking about universal museums and their accessibility to the public at large. To say nothing of the complex issues surrounding museum collecting ethics, and especially of the practices of museums like the BM, I think it is quite incredible to have these collections available to us, the public. I think it is important that any person of society, granted s/he has proper identification, could access the works held in this or any museum study room. My classmate and I were not looked down upon for lacking a research project that required use of the collection, nor did we feel out of place for not knowing first what we wanted to see. The department workers sensed our curiosity and, from what I could tell, were eager to see that we were not treated like distractions to those who had actual research to do. They were even trustful enough to know we would handle the works with the utmost care.

In this regard, museums should not be viewed as so elitist and restricted to scholars alone. Art and antiquities are not just subject to study by people with academic degrees; as the saying going, "Life is better when there's art." As I learned from my brief experience in the Prints and Drawings Study Room, museums can easily be egalitarian, democratic, and open to all tiers of society, if one knows how and where to look. Given that these works are the products of our shared cultural heritage, it would be wrong to cast people aside and disallow them access for any reason. The accessibility to a rare Michelangelo drawing can turn even the most uneducated, "uncultured" person into an avid art critic in his/her own right. It is just such exposure to new objects and ideas that ideally can inform people as to their species' rich, diverse cultural legacy.

I recommend visiting the study rooms or research libraries next time you are at a large museum. It is an interesting way to see objects that are otherwise never on display, and this interaction can honestly make you feel like you have exclusive, intimate interaction with a priceless artifact.

Culture in Peril Featured in Two Blogs

Culture in Peril has of late been receiving some much appreciated attention in the blogosphere!

Last week, Julie (Theentrepreneurialmom's Blog) plugged Culture in Peril's "Coney Island's Hot Dog Heritage" and considered how the 140-year-old hot dog hoax can be seen from a marketing and promotions standpoint.

Adrian Miller also posted a note on her Facebook linking her friends to "Remembering to Remember at Holocaust Memorials."

It is great to see the these topics and issues reaching people who work outside of the cultural heritage sector. Keep reading and enjoying!

Biologist's View on Species and "Wide worldview"

Culture in Peril would like to plug the latest blog post by Hannah at Culturing Science. Hidden in a very well-researched scientific discussion of central Californian salamanders and invasive species, Hannah considers the biological definition of species: "For sexually reproducing organisms, a species is the group of animals with whom one can exchange genetic material via reproduction, or, in other words, can produce fertile offspring." Hannah is a biologist (she works in a molecular biology lab in Philadelphia!) and provides us with a very interesting perspective on how a scientist of biology thinks about species--esp. the human species and culture.

Hannah writes, "To distinguish one species from another under this definition, a scientist would need a pretty wide worldview." She jokingly asks her readers to imagine a transatlantic squirrel breeder-scientist who can discern American and British squirrels--impossible Hannah concludes, "he would need a pretty wide worldview."

Hannah: Is the cultural scientist unable to ponder the different cultures of the world? Are biologists and cultural anthropologists similarly limited in their respective fields' analytical studies of species (or different cultural groups)? Let me remind you that cultural anthropology has attempted to explain "Other" cultures through a distinct eco- and bio-logical lens for decades, while a recent NYTimes Science article, which discusses a cozier relationship between Biology and Cultural Heritage vis-a-vis human evolution, seems to indicate biology is only just discovering cultural studies. I am sure Biology will continue to work for a more pragmatic approach to Culture. (Is there already a "cultural biology" under the umbrella term "cultural ecology"?)

I will certainly be looking forward to future posts from Hannah at Culturing Science, www.culturingscience.wordpress.com.

Coney Island's Hot Dog Heritage

On the corner of Surf and Stillwell Avenues in Coney Island, New York, stands the original Nathan's Famous hot dog restaurant. Ever since it was established in 1916, devouring hot dogs at this particular location has become something of an American tradition. Sure they offer onion rings, seafood, and chicken strips, but this beloved fast food chain is also where the art of the dirty water all-beef hot dog has been perfected. Consult any Coney Island local and you'll be told that if your dog isn't served in a Nathan's wrapper then it's just not as good.

Moreover, Nathan's has so finely captured the American spirit of mass consumption and competition by hosting its famous International Hot Dog Eating Contest every July 4th that now parents say to their kids, "Finish your hot dog so you can be like our great American folk hero, Joey Chestnut." (OK, doubtful.) In reality though, the contest makes for awesome entertainment--televised on ESPN!--and advertises Nathan's Famous hot dogs better than any blog post can. So, what do hot dogs have to do with heritage?

CNN and News 12 The Bronx recently picked up a story about a 140-year-old hot dog unearthed at Coney Island during the demolition of Feltman's Kitchen, the restaurant where the first hot dog was made. The "discovered" frankfurter was preserved in a block of ice, still wrapped in its bun and with the original Feltman's receipt. For days the frozen artifact sat on the sidewalk with a sign reading, "1st Hot Dog." One can imagine the overwhelming sense of pride and satisfaction Coney Islanders must have felt upon seeing their own history pulled up from beneath the pavement. "These things are irreplaceable, they're priceless," one man said. "It's great that they found it and it will be here for generations to see and learn." Another said, "Coney Island holds a lot of history of Brooklyn and New York, and for them to find a hot dog [here] is just something to add onto it."

Alas, Coney Islanders enjoyed their ancient hot dog for only a few days before it was finally revealed to be a hoax, perpetrated by the Coney Island History Project. A spokesperson for the CIHP said the hot dog hoax was "a publicity stunt in the grand tradition of Coney Island ballyhoo." Publicity for what exactly? A summer exhibition by the History Project of real artifacts uncovered at the Feltman's site.

The History Project's chosen method of advertising the exhibition should not be seen as an abuse of Coney Islander's loyalty, an insult to their intelligence, or a mockery of their hot dog fancy. Rather, the publicity stunt was a very clever way to bring attention to an exhibit that might otherwise garner very little interest among locals. One woman who was interviewed admitted that the 140-year-old hot dog made her curious and that she would "probably go see it." The "1st Hot Dog" stunt clearly turned people on to activities of their local history group, and for a small, not-for-profit organization like the CIHP, these types of schemes can bring more exposure, both local and widespread, than can any single visit to a local school or community center.

I think the History Project was keen to take advantage of a strong, prominent cultural symbol of Coney Island's identity. I think they appropriately honored the local history insofar as the publicity stunt allowed Coney Islanders to feel gratified by their hot dog heritage. As the History Project spokesperson said, "People want to believe these types of things are true." This story exemplifies how having an invested interest in one's local heritage is as important as one's interest in the wider heritage landscape. Or, even further, it might be seen that all local heritages form the whole of our cultural heritage landscape.

Think about what makes you proud to live (or come from) where you do. Is there any connection to historical events, famous former or current residents, an interesting icon or symbol of place, etc.?

Remembering to Remember at Holocaust Museums

I recently visited the Imperial War Museum London, a British national museum which seeks "to enable people to have an informed understanding of modern war and its impact on individuals and society" (mission statement). If you are hoping to learn about the former British Empire and its global conquests, as the museum's name might lead you to believe, then the IWM is actually not the place you want to go at all. Instead, what is done most successfully at the IWM is the ability of its exhibitions to remind people how to remember.

The third floor of the IWM, for example, features an intensely graphic, artifact-rich and text- and video-based exhibition on The Holocaust. This dimly lit gallery space--no doubt a conservation measure as well as for thematic and aesthetic purposes--is a winding tour through jagged, claustrophobic compartments detailing certain historical aspects of The Holocaust. The exhibition moves along somewhat of a chronological and topical sequence: from Europe after WWI and the rise of Hitler; to German anti-Semitism and racial propaganda; to the Nazi invasion and domination of Europe; to the formation of Jewish ghettos and "re-settlement"; to the camp system and life within in; to the eventual resistance, rescue, and discovery of the death camps; and, finally, to war crimes trials of the Nazis and reflections by the survivors.

Perhaps the most illuminating part of the whole experience is found in the space about the deportation to concentration camps and the spotlight on Auschwitz, where the Nazis "perfected" (quoted from the exhibit text) the operation of concentration camps and the carrying out of "The Final Solution." Visitors walk through an authentic reconstructed cattle car used by the Nazis to transport tens of thousands of people across Europe and into to the camps. The text describes the deportation process and includes transcriptions of deportees' written "last letters," one of which was handed off to a railroad worker in hopes that he would send it without postage. Upon exiting the car, visitors come to a massive 50-foot model of a small section--maybe 15%--of Auschwitz. Audio clips of camp survivors describing the last time they saw their family members can be heard, and the text details how the deportees were separated, male from female, young from aged, weak from strong. In glass cabinets on the other side of the model are personal effects of those who did not escape the gas chambers: scorched eyeglasses, tattered leather shoes, children's toys, Star of David necklaces.

Readers will notice that in this brief description of The Holocaust Exhibition there is a distinct exclusion of my personal emotional responses. I have purposely left out private reactions so as not to cloud the key premise of this blog post: museum exhibits dedicated to past tragedies, particularly human induced atrocities such as The Holocaust, are important vehicles in the formation of collective memory and facilitate the consumption of trauma/loss in a way that provides society with a cathartic release from grief. Simply put, memorials to "negative heritage" allow society to remember to remember.

From a Western perspective, material objects can serve as analogs for human memory wherein the memory lasts as long as the object. Preservation of artifacts, therefore, equates to preservation of the memory. Some people will inevitably find the display of victims' personal items gross, insensitive, and dehumanizing. However, such display, I think, permits present and future viewers to form an emotional, sympathetic connection to a victim. The viewer thus identifies the former possession of an object with a historical person rather than viewing it merely as a surviving relic of the tragedy. Possessions can serve a dual purpose, both as symbols for the dead and for the tragic event itself.

Alternatively, in Cambodian and Rwandan atrocity memorials it is common for human remains, particularly the skulls of genocide victims, to be put on display. In the West, human bones are rarely if ever used as museum pieces to memorialize the dead; it is just too visceral and "disturbing." Yet, Cambodians and Rwandans have a willingness to display the bloody wrappings of murdered individuals because for them it demonstrates the hideousness of the event. Such a display is their unique way of showing that the repression of memory is unhealthy, that forgetting the dead is to altogether shun history and its lessons. They remember by these means so as to prevent the reoccurring of this tragedy.

In this way, then, loss demands confirmation. Holocaust memorial exhibitions such as that at the IWM, and even entire memorial museums such as those found throughout the world, do just that: their cure is a talking cure. Though their method of grief counseling is different than in Cambodia and Rwanda, Holocaust memorials in the West have the same purpose--to negotiate, to reconcile, and, if possible, to repair the damage inflicted.

I think these types of museums and memorials are powerful creators of collective memory. While clearly not every individual will engage with these displays in the same way, the point is not to create universal sentiments and a common feeling of regret (or pride) and grief (or happiness). Instead, there is the commemorative role in which all people are able to consume the history in a way that prevents society from forgetting history entirely. I agree that it is problematic to assume everyone will appreciate the act of remembering, but I think memory can ultimately effect positive change in the future in a way that total repression can not.