The Academic Research Institute in Iraq

A CONVERSATION ABOUT IRAQ’S CULTURAL HERITAGE

December 8, 2020

TARII hosted a conversation about Iraq’s cultural heritage moderated by Dr. Katharyn Hanson, a Cultural Heritage Preservation Scholar at the Smithsonian’s Museum Conservation Institute. The panelists Maysoon Al-Damluji, Dr. Abdulameer Al-Hamdani, Dr. Patty Gerstenblith, and Dr. Nada Shabout discussed:

• key issues for Iraq’s cultural heritage today

• the progression of cultural heritage research

• the role of the international community

• the trafficking of cultural heritage objects and artifacts

• the preservation of modern art and historic architecture

• effects of the global pandemic
  
  

DR. KATHARYN HANSON, MODERATOR

Dr. Katharyn Hanson is a Smithsonian Secretary's Scholar and a Cultural Heritage Preservation Scholar at the Museum Conservation Institute. She works as an archaeologist specializing in the protection of cultural heritage. Dr. Hanson received her doctorate from the University of Chicago with a dissertation entitled: Considerations of Cultural Heritage: Threats to Mesopotamian Archaeological Sites. Previously she held a visiting research position with the Geospatial Technologies Team at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Pennsylvania Museum and MCI. She directs archaeological site preservation training at the Iraqi Institute for the Conservation of Antiquities and Heritage in Erbil, Iraq and serves on the Board of The Academic Research Institute in Iraq (TARII). She has been involved in various archaeological fieldwork projects for over 25 years and has curated museum exhibits and published on damage to ancient sites in Iraq and Syria. Her research combines field archaeology, remote sensing, and cultural heritage protection methodology and policy with on-the-ground action to protect culture.

MAYSOON AL-DAMLUJI

Maysoon Al-Damluji is a liberal politician who studied at the Architectural Association School of Architecture in London and practised as an architect until 2003. She served as Deputy Minister of Culture (2003- 2006) in Iraq, was a Member of the Iraqi Parliament for 3 terms (2006- 2018), and chairperson of the Parliamentary Committee for Culture and Media. Her main focus is cultural issues and women's rights in Iraq. Currently, she is Adviser of Culture and Reconstruction Affairs for President Barham Saleh.

DR. ABDULAMEER AL-HAMDANI

Dr. Abdulameer Al-Hamdani is an Anthropological Archaeologist specializing in the Near Eastern and Mesopotamian archaeology. He has a Bachelor degree in Ancient Archaeology, Baghdad University 1987, an MA in Archaeology from the Department of Anthropology of State University of New York at Stony Brook, May 2013, entitled Town, Village and Marsh Settlement in the Eridu Basin: Economic, Spatial, Political and Ritual Relationships between Settlements in the Sumerian Heartland in the Early Second Millennium BCE. He has a PhD from the Department of Anthropology-the State University of New York at Stony Brook, 2015 entitled The Shadow States: The Archaeology of Power in the Marshes of Southern Mesopotamia. He has specialized in using remote sensing, GIS, and geospatial techniques in archaeology; regional archaeological survey, internal systematic survey, and landscape archaeology. Dr. Al-Hamdani has served as the Minister of Culture, Tourism, and Antiquities in Iraq, Chairman of the State Board of Antiquities and Heritage, Director of the Antiquities office of the Dhiqar province, Director of the Nasiriya Museum, and has led numerous excavations in Iraq.

DR. PATTY GERSTENBLITH

Dr. Patty Gerstenblith is a Distinguished Research Professor of Law at DePaul University and Director of its Center for Art, Museum & Cultural Heritage Law. She is founding president of the Lawyers Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation (2005-2011), an officer of the U.S. Committee of the Blue Shield, a member of the steering committee for ABA's Art and Cultural Heritage Law Committee, and a research associate at the University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. From 2011 to 2017, she served as an appointee of President Obama as the chair of the President's Cultural Property Advisory Committee in the U.S. Department of State, on which she had previously served as a public representative in the Clinton administration. From 1995 to 2002, she was editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Cultural Property. Gerstenblith received her AB from Bryn Mawr College, PhD in art history and anthropology from Harvard University, and JD from Northwestern University. Before joining the DePaul law faculty, Gerstenblith clerked for the Honorable Richard D. Cudahy of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit.

DR. NADA SHABOUT

Nada Shabout is a Professor of Art History and the Coordinator of the Contemporary Arab and Muslim Cultural Studies Initiative (CAMCSI) at the University of North Texas. She is the founding president of the Association for Modern and Contemporary Art from the Arab World, Iran and Turkey (AMCA). She is the author of Modern Arab Art: Formation of Arab Aesthetics, University of Florida Press, 2007; co-editor of New Vision: Arab Art in the 21st Century, Thames & Hudson, 2009; and co-editor of Modern Art in the Arab World: Primary Documents, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2018. She is also founding director of Modern Art Iraq Archive. Notable among exhibitions she has curated: Sajjil: A Century of Modern Art, 2010; traveling exhibition, Dafatir: Contemporary Iraqi Book Art, 2005-2009; and co-curator, Modernism and Iraq, 2009. Major awards of her research include: Getty Foundation 2019; Writers Grant, Andy Warhol Foundation 2018; The Academic Research Institute in Iraq (TARII) fellow 2006, 2007, Fulbright Senior Scholar Program, 2008. She is currently working on a new book project, Demarcating Modernism in Iraqi Art: The Dialectics of the Decorative, 1951-1979, under contract with the American University in Cairo Press. Dr. Shabout is also on the Board of TARII.

Due to the interest in this topic, this was the first of a regular series on cultural heritage preservation in Iraq. The second, Protecting Iraq's Modern Cultural Heritage: Modern Art, Historic Architecture, and Documentary Collections, was held on March 3, 2021 with information available here. Information on the third and fourth discussions in this series, focusing on the protection of Iraq’s ancient cultural heritage, can be found here.