Aims

This module aims to answer the following questions:

1.       What is heritage?
This module will familiarise you with the detail and breadth of conceptualisations of heritage. It aims to equip you with the knowledge of how different global definitions of heritage have been generated through theory, policy and practice, and to enable you to judge why this matters.

2.       Whose heritage?
This module explores who heritage is for. It focuses on the key areas of tourism and communities. It aims to enable you to navigate the cultural tourism phenomenon, identifying which heritage speaks to whom and the implications for heritage interpretation. It investigates grass-roots heritage and community-based heritage initiatives through the lenses of practice and politics.

3.       What are the forms and uses of heritage?
This module examines relationships between heritage and media. It aims to enable you to investigate how they interact in people’s lives and in heritage practice. It focusses on how different media and forms attract new audiences and provide possible heritage futures.

Outline Of Syllabus

In answering questions about what heritage is, who it is for, and exploring its forms and uses, you will cover the following indicative topics:
- how heritage has been conceptualised (including, for example, within legal frameworks, policy and funding documents, by local, national and international bodies, in academic and grey literature) and how this links to understandings of ownership;
- the changing impact of cultural tourism (including, for example, the influence of shifting cultural demographics, the ways in which heritage speaks to different audiences, the practicalities of funding, the impacts of commodification and business models, and the challenges for on-site/online interpretation);
- understandings and practices of community heritage (including, for example ‘heritage-from-below’, personal and group engagements with the past, diasporic heritage practice, and co-production with official agencies and researchers);
- the relationships between different forms of media as/with heritage (including, for example, how heritage is brought to new audiences through film, art, gaming and festivals) and how multimedia offers possibilities for new heritage futures (including, for example, relationships between memory and the digital).

Teaching Rationale And Relationship

Module talk: This teaching method will be used to introduce the module and brief students about assessment.

Drop-in/surgery: This teaching method will be used to support students in working towards the assignment and offer preliminary feedback on ideas for their blog.

Lectures: Delivered on campus (or online as necessary) in order to develop students' knowledge on key issues and achieve knowledge learning outcomes.

Fieldwork: on-site activity (or virtual if required) to engage with a case study site that complements and relates to other teaching methods and helps students to achieve knowledge learning outcomes.

Small-group teaching: This teaching method is intended to allow students to consolidate knowledge learning outcomes and to meet the skills outcomes through critically applying their new knowledge. It also allows students to practice all of the skillsets within the Graduate Skills Framework.

Structured research and reading activities: This teaching method enables students to independently deepen knowledge outcomes and to practise all skills outcomes, as well as applying cognitive/intellectual, self-management and interaction skills in particular.

Assessment Rationale And Relationship

The two assessments are staggered in such a way as to allow for incremental, reflexive learning. The preliminary report will allow you to post on a real case study that you have selected yourself and, in doing so, to appreciate the significance of this knowledge for contemporary heritage practice. The preliminary report and the written exercise will allow you to consider different scales and dimensions of heritage and to decide where you would most like to intervene in the debates. For the second assessment, you will be given a list of potential essay questions and case studies but will also be able to define your own topics in consultation with the module leader. Skills of research, synthesis and clarity will be needed for both forms of assessment and they will allow you to develop your communication skills and your understandings of different types of heritage, and to refine your own ethical approaches to heritage.