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Skidmore College
First-Year Experience

Scribner Seminar Program
Course Description

This place, these things

Instructor(s): Siobhan Hart, Anthropology

An examination of how places and objects invoke heritage: collective memories, cultural values, histories, and identities. Students explore how places and things are used to transmit some heritage, while silencing others. Which memories, values, histories, and identities are amplified, and which are erased? How and why are intangible values and memories embedded in tangible places and things? Drawing on theory and method from social science and humanities disciplines, students gather evidence from local places (our campus, city, and county) and objects (maps, artifacts, buildings, artworks, and monuments) to address these questions and better understand heritage and its relationship to power.

Course Offered: