Welcome and Introduction to “Negotiating Cultural Heritage. Making, Sustaining, Breaking, Sharing”

What started as the Annual Conference 2016 entitled ‘Making, Sustaining, Breaking – The Politics of Heritage and Culture’ in Heidelberg, reached the Bode Museum as the follow-up event ‘Negotiating Cultural Heritage. Making, Sustaining, Breaking, Sharing’ on 24 April 2017. It was convened by the research program Art Histories and Aesthetic Practices, the Cluster of Excellence „Asia and Europe in a Global Context“, the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut, the Forum Transregionale Studien, the Max Weber Stiftung and the Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz. With her welcome and introduction remarks, Barbara Mittler (Cluster Asia and Europe/Board Member of the Forum Transregionale Studien) reminded us of the inspiring talks at the Heidelberg conference, providing the point of departure for the conversation in Berlin.

Barbara Mittler is Professor of Sinology at the University of Heidelberg. She is the Co-Director of the Cluster of Excellence “Asia and Europe in a Global Context” and the Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies (HCTS). She began her studies of Sinology at the University of Oxford (MA Oxon 1990) and has spent research periods in Taiwan, the People’s Republic of China, Hong Kong as well as Harvard and Stanford. Her PhD (1994) and her habilitation (post-doctoral thesis, 1998) are both from Heidelberg. Her research focuses on cultural production in (greater) China covering a range of topics from music to (visual) and (historical) print media in China’s long modernity. Since February 2015 Barbara Mittler is a member of the Forum’s Board of Directors.

The following interviews and contributions have emerged from the event:

Aida Murtic and Anna Sawerthal (2017). Reports: Negotiating Cultural Heritage. Making, Sustaining, Breaking, Sharing. A Conversation

Panel Discussion “Negotiating Cultural Heritage. Making, Sustaining, Breaking, Sharing” (2017)