Connections Episode 32
Protecting Cultural Heritage
Mouin Rabbani Interviews Heghnar Watenpaugh
On Wednesday, 30 March Jadaliyya co-editor Mouin Rabbani and award-winning scholar and author Heghnar Watenpaugh discussed the protection of cultural heritage. This episode of Connections examines the rights and responsibilities involved in the protection of cultural heritage, as well as the challenges in preserving threatened heritage using examples from Armenia, Syria, and elsewhere.
Connections offers timely and informative interviews on current events and broader policy questions, as well as themes relevant to knowledge production. It combines journalism, analysis, and scholarship.
Guest
Heghnar Zeitlian Watenpaugh is Professor of Art History at the University of California, Davis. She researches the visual cultures of the Middle East, including issues of architectural preservation, museums, and cultural heritage. Her first book, The Image of an Ottoman City: Architecture in Aleppo, received the book award for urban history from the Society of Architectural Historians. Her second, The Missing Pages: The Modern Life of a Medieval Manuscript, from Genocide to Justice, published by Stanford University Press in 2019, is the only book to win awards from both the Society for Armenian Studies and the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association. The book also won the Gold Medal in World History from the Independent Publisher Book Awards, and was shortlisted for the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing (non-fiction). The Missing Pages was featured in The New York Times, and was selected as one of 2019’s top books in the arts by the art publication hyperallergic. Her scholarly publications have won Best Article Prizes from the Syrian Studies Association and the Ottoman and Turkish Studies Association. Watenpaugh’s writing has additionally appeared in Newsweek and The Los Angeles Times,andwas featured in a BBC series about cultural heritage destroyed during the Syrian conflict. This year, she is a fellow of the Guggenheim Foundation as well as a National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholar.
Host
Mouin Rabbani has published and commented widely on Palestinian affairs, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the contemporary Middle East. He was previously Senior Analyst Middle East and Special Advisor on Israel-Palestine with the International Crisis Group, and head of political affairs with the Office of the United Nations Special Envoy for Syria. He is Co-Editor of Jadaliyya Ezine.
Previous Episodes
Connections Podcast Episode 1: The Biden Administration and the Middle East with Noam Chomsky
Connections Podcast Episode 2: The Politics of Holy Cities with Mick Dumper and Maha Samman
Connections Podcast Episode 3: Apartheid Israel with Norman Finkelstein
Connections Podcast Episode 4: Israel-Palestine: A Turning Point? with Nathan Thrall
Connections Podcast Episode 5: Investigating Israel with Lori Allen
Connections Podcast Episode 6: The US Congress, Israel, and the Palestinians with Lara Friedman
Connections Podcast Episode 7: Palestine at the Crossroads with Hanan Ashrawi
Connections Podcast Episode 9: Lebanon in Crisis with Nadya Sbaiti
Connections Episode 10: Crisis in Tunisia with Houda Mzioudet
Connections Episode 11: A Planet in the Balance with Jeffrey D. Sachs
Connections Episode 12: Focus Afghanistan with Benon Sevan
Connections Episode 13: Asylum in the USA with Basileus Zeno
Connections Episode 14 - Digital Espionage: A Global Pandemic with Marwa Fatafta
Connections Episode 15: The Lasting Legacies of US Torture with Lisa Hajjar
Connections Episode 16: Whither Yemen? with Helen Lackner
Connections Episode 17: A Decade of Upheaval with Nabih Bulos
Connections Episode 18 — Iran: Domestic and Foreign Politics with Ali Vaez
Connections Episode 22: Narrations of Palestine with Alison Glick and Nora Lester Murad
Connections Episode 23: The Global Far Right with Cas Mudde
Connections Episode 24: Crises in The Maghreb with Samia Errazzouki
Connections Episode 25: War Economies with Mark Taylor
Connections Episode 26: Libya in the Balance with Claudia Gazzini
Connections Episode 27: Israel's Sacred Terrorism with Remi Brulin
Connections Episode 28: Tunisia's New Autocracy with Mohammed Haddad
Connections Episode 29: Crisis in Afghanistan with Ali Latifi
Connections Episode 30: Yemen’s Endless War with Safa Al Ahmad
Connections Episode 31: Sudan Today with Khalid Mustafa Medani