Politics of Cult Preservation

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

Whether or not we like it, the world has indeed become a global village. In this context, the seminar will deal with the international cultural heritage and its preservation. Heritage and history are often confused. In essence, cultural heritage is something appreciable in our lives. It can be tangible, such as a building, or intangible such as music. In essence, history is a record of what happened. Our heritage can also be very personal, a family matter involving ancestry and property. The largest familial unit of personal heritage is race. Our common cultural heritage is shared with our fellow citizens on many levels — neighborhood, municipal, county, state, and national communities. From the national we move to the international community and our shared common cultural heritage which belongs to the family of humankind. Paul Mellon, the inspired philanthropist, collector, and humanist, whose father founded the National Gallery of Art, insisted that the Gallery remain open to the public free of charge. He helped to make that a reality. The reason why he felt so committed to such a generous policy was that he deeply believed that every person should be able to “enjoy a five minute reverie with beauty.” Beauty in all of its manifestations — architecture, objets d’art, paintings, landscapes, cityscapes, literature, music (to name but a few) — the potpourri that composes what goes by the name of civilization is of daily significance for all persons. All other disparate elements that compose civilization are interrelated and quintessentially necessary for an informed and happy life. Our shared heritage offers all of us the opportunity to better understand our fellow human beings around the globe, to glimpse through a glass darkly into random or selected corners of the past that might offer some insights into our own lives and help us move forward in a meaningful way, to understand that we all, for the most part, share basic norms, aspirations, doubts, fears, and dreams, to realize that we are all necessary to one another, that we are all in the journey together, and to relish the breath of the human imagination and its ability to create beauty in all its guises from the Taj Mahal, to a netsuke, to a Benin bronze, to an Inupiat baleen basket. The seminar opens with a consideration of the importance of reverie.