É«É«Ñо¿Ëù

Kyle Olson (Washington University at St. Louis) will speak on "Looking back over a century of US-Iran Heritage Diplomacy". Lunch will be at 12, the lecture will be at 12:30.

Lecture Abstract:
Every major fine arts and archaeological museum in the United States has a collection of Iranian antiquities, with predictable categories of objects on display, representative of the results of decades of scientific excavations as well as art-market collecting vogues. How did this come to pass and why does it matter today? In this talk, I will share some of the highlights from my book project—American Archaeology in Iran, Iranian Antiquities in America—which shows how the accumulation of Iranian patrimony in the United States is the result of decades of heritage diplomacy, in which Iranian and American archaeologists participated—albeit on unequal footing—in research collaborations, material and educational exchanges, and the cooperative governance of vestiges of the past. In light of recent geopolitical events, understanding and making good on the durable and lasting connection between these two nations manifested in Iranian patrimony stored in American institutions has never been more important.