The Pathos of Conservation

Raphael Samuel and the politics of heritage

Bibliographic Data

ID5700764
AuthorsKynan Gentry (0000-0002-4843-5017, Australian National University, corresponding author)
Year2015
Volume21
Issue6
Pages561-576
Publication date2015-07-03
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Journal of Heritage Studies (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1352-7258 • E-ISSN: 1470-3610
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/13527258.2014.953192
OpenAlexW2087646396
LanguageEN
Citations received10
References cited16

When Raphael Samuel’s Theatres of Memory: Past and Present in Contemporary Culture was published in 1994, it was critically received. Yet, the book has not had the impact of other key works such as Lowenthal’s The Past is a Foreign Country (1985) or Hewison’s The Heritage Industry (1987). A number of factors have contributed to this, such as Theatres essentially being an unfinished project, and ‘heritage’ in the book having multiple personas – the net result being that Samuel’s arguments can at times be hard to pin down. Yet with interest in his approach to heritage now growing, this article seeks to unravel Samuel’s core ideas and arguments pertaining to heritage, and to give an historical background to their evolution. With the central tenets of Samuel’s argument essentially being a case for the democratisation of heritage; the validity of what we might today call ‘unofficial’ narratives and discourses; and to challenge the dominant view that heritage was ultimately history’s poor cousin, I argue that Samuel’s ideas have much to offer contemporary research agendas in heritage

Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Cultural heritage · Cultural heritage management · Democracy · Democratization · Environmental ethics · Literature · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Archaeological Research and Protection · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · History · Law · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Philosophy

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