Heritage and Presence

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.

This symposium is organized by Wolf Humanities Center and co-sponsored by the Graduate Program in Historic Preservation. Francesca Russello Ammon, associate professor of City Planning and Historic Preservation, will participate in the afternoon panel, "Contesting Heritage: Counternarratives in the Material Record and the Built Environment." Christopher Rogers, research fellow with the Center for the Preservation of Civil Rights Sites, will participate in the morning panel, "Beyond the Institution: Perspectives from West Philadelphia and the Problems with Talking About Heritage at Penn."

View the full schedule on the Wolf Humanities website.