Assistant professor of art and art history Carolyn Guile has long had an interest in cultural property, even focusing her doctoral research on the destruction and rebuilding of such sites in Warsaw during World War Two. Her passion for the subject and desire to facilitate discussion about cultural property worldwide led her to the idea for “Form and Content: A Symposium on Cultural Property.”
Held in ߲ݴý’s Golden Auditorium in Little Hall, the symposium begins today with a 7 p.m. screening of The Rape of Europa, a film about the destruction of art during the Nazi regime. It continues Friday with a day of talk, discussion, and reflection on the idea of cultural property, and its state in today’s world.
Explaining the idea behind the symposium, Guile said, “Cultural property is an extensions of our human selves, and I want to understand that relationship between who we are as a society and individuals, what we make, and what happens when cultural property changes hands, when it is destroyed, when it is remade, and when it is protected.”
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• Sessions are free and open to the public
The symposium will consider “how cultural property is related to issues of human life,” said Guile. “We wanted to bring in speakers from outside ߲ݴý, experts in their fields, who could be put into dialogue together and get you thinking about these issues as they relate to one another.”
The speakers and respondents for each of the 10 major talks come from ߲ݴý and other universities across the country, and from a wide variety of specializations.
“The discussions are going to be high-level because those who are responding either have familiarity with the topics presented, or come from related fields,” said Guile. “I wanted to make it interdisciplinary, to have both specialists and non-specialists among the respondents.”
A key aspect of the symposium is student involvement. The curriculum for her own ARTS 360 course Borderlands focused on the symposium’s topic for the week, and STAND, ߲ݴý’s chapter of a nationwide student genocide prevention organization, is serving as a co-sponsor.
Hilary Olshonsky ’11 and Alyson Poulos ’11, two of STAND’s leaders, are enthusiastic about the group’s involvement, seeing it as an opportunity to raise awareness about “an often-overlooked consequence of genocide,” said Poulos.
Olshonsky added, “The symposium provides a unique opportunity for STAND to collaborate with faculty on a formal, educational event that will exemplify to the community how the destruction of cultural property and heritage is a significant issue in the realm of genocide.”
The forum is cosponsored by a number of ߲ݴý offices and organizations, as well as Princeton University’s Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.