Selling Grandma: Commodification of the Sacred through Intellectual Property Rights Objects and Identities: Claiming and Reclaiming the PastĬultural Significance and the Kennewick Skeleton: Some Thoughts on the Resolution of Cultural Heritage Disputes Latin America, Native America, and the Politics of Culture Thomas Crow, Director, Getty Research InstituteĪmending Historical Injustices: The Restitution of Cultural Property-An OverviewĪppropriating the Stones: The “Elgin Marbles” and English National Taste

This series makes available scholarship produced by the programs of the Getty Research Institute in collaboration with researchers and institutions worldwide. Its volumes address subjects of scholarly and public concern by assessing visual art in various cultural and historical contexts using a range of theoretical approaches.

The Issues & Debates series offers multiple perspectives on questions at the intersection of art history and the human sciences. The research it promotes is experimental and interdisciplinary, focused on specific problems but seeking unexpected connections among images, objects, texts, traditions, and social practices. The Getty Research Institute fosters critical inquiry into the creation and reception of all forms of visual art. At stake in these essays is not only how the past is framed but also how the control of cultural property may shape and consolidate group identity, both now and in the future. The objects of these disputes include tangible, unique items such as the Parthenon Marbles or the skeleton of Kennewick Man whose custody has provoked petitions for repatriation or restitution intangible property such as the patterns of Maori tattoo or performances of traditional music whose appropriation has prompted calls for indigenous regulation and figurative “representations” such as Mark Twain’s portrayal of African Americans or Philip Roth’s depictions of American Jewishness that have led to censure and censorship. Its fifteen essays address current controversies over the definition and use of cultural materials from the perspectives of archaeology, physical anthropology, ethnobiology, ethnomusicology, law, history, and cultural and literary study. Claiming the Stones/Naming the Bones considers the many ways in which controversies regarding the ownership of tangible and intangible communal expression have defined and determined solidarities in the modern era.Ĭlaiming the Stones/Naming the Bones focuses on the interplay between ethnic or national identity and claims to cultural property. Art, literature, music, monuments, myths, and traditional practices can create a profound sense of communal belonging, yet nothing illuminates the ambiguities of group identity more than conflicting claims to such cultural property.

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