Graduate Program (& Advanced Certificate) Status
The course provides students with a practical understanding of ethical issues in cultural heritage, with particular attention to professional responsibilities, ethical codes, and legal mandates; concepts of stewardship, custodianship, and management; and issues of ownership, repatriation, and restitution.
The course focuses on ethical responsibilities to outside constituencies, including cultural heritage professional associations, research participants, and source communities from which heritage items were originally acquired as embodied in various ethical codes and legal mandates. Particular attention will be given to the issues of protection of human subjects in research and dealing with repatriation requests from indigenous communities.
To gain a working familiarity with the range of ethical issues inherent in the preservation of cultural heritage.
To develop critical reading skills of technical and legal texts.
To be able to identify, analyze, and resolve ethical issues.