A concise, engaging, yet somewhat limited introduction to a thematic hot potato
Abstract
Markus Tauschek’s Kulturerbe is one of the latest offerings from Reimer’s Kulturwissenschaften series and serves as a general introduction to Kulturerbe (cultural heritage) from the perspective of cultural anthropology. The author begins by addressing the apparent ubiquity of cultural heritage, its definition, the history of its usage (mostly within the German speaking sphere), its inextricable entanglement with monuments, conservation initiatives, museologising, memory, UNESCO, and world heritage. He also considers the material and immaterial implications of the forms taken by cultural heritage, not to mention questions of ownership, the relationship it has with tourism and, finally, the emerging field of critical heritage studies. In bringing together such a broad array of themes crucial for the understanding of such a thematic hot potato in such a short volume, this work is an achievement in the field of short introductory texts.
All articles (not book covers) in KULT_online from issue 50 on are published under the license Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. All published articles may be reused under the conditions of the license, particularly for commercial purposes and through editing the article (Human-Readable Summary). All authors (have) permitted the publication under the above mentioned license. There is no copyright transfer towards KULT_online. For all book covers specific rights might be reserved, please contact the respective publisher for any lawful reuse. All contributions published in issue 1-49 of KULT_online are free available online and protected by the German Copyright Law.
