HERM 501 invites students to discuss and debate formative issues in Heritage Resources Management from a number of perspectives and in terms of the major areas of heritage practice in museums, historic places, archives, and other heritage institutions and agencies.
This course focuses on research that forms part of the essential heritage resources management tasks of identifying the elements of the past that are significant or meaningful, determining how and why they are meaningful, and deciding how they can best be preserved and managed as a public trust.
HERM 542: Issues in Planning Historic Places studies the complexity of assessing, planning, and conserving the heritage value of historic places. The course looks at the evolution and significant debates in the heritage planning field and the purpose of historic place commemoration. The course also explores how issues of sustainability and climate change, along with Indigenous Ways of Knowing are now shaping how we approach heritage planning.
HERM 561 explores interpretive programming as a specialized process that affects most aspects of museum and heritage operations, especially exhibitions and other public programming.
Industrial heritage is an important field in cultural heritage management, with a mature methodological base, a dynamic subject area and an exceptional social relevance to industrial and post-industrial societies. The fundamental concepts and approaches of heritage management are shared by the field of industrial heritage, but there are also interesting differences. These may include sources of significance, questions of scale and sustainability, technical challenges from unusual materials, issues around adaptation and re-purposing, and the particular challenges of interpretation and appreciation. This course makes students familiar with the principle characteristics of industrial heritage and the array of tools and techniques used in its study, care, and use.
In Heritage Resources Management 671, students are given the opportunity to explore new ways of observing and thinking about the built environment through practical application of documentation methods and fieldwork exercises.
Cultural heritage is increasingly at risk due to natural and human-made disasters. Historic cities and monuments, archaeological sites, cultural landscapes, museums and archives, artistic handicrafts, and intangible heritage are affected by disasters and armed conflicts. The loss of cultural heritage leads to disappearance of important sources of knowledge, tradition, and identity; it also causes the deterioration of socio-economic resources necessary for the recovery and development of impacted societies. This course assists students to gain knowledge about disaster risk management for cultural heritage sites and collections and focuses on the measures and actions that should be undertaken by cultural heritage professionals before, during, and after a disaster and in the context of disaster and emergency situations.
Heritage Resources Management 673: Architectural Conservation is an introduction to architectural heritage conservation and will provide the participants with a foundation in history, theory, and professional practice. It will include the historic conservation movement, including the main theorists, historical and philosophical development, major works, charters, and conceptual frameworks. HERM 673 will explore a range of subjects and issues that affect architectural conservation. It will also discuss the relationships between architectural conservation and its environmental and urban contexts.