Professor Suzie Thomas holds public lectures in Tartu

Suzie Thomas, Professor of Heritage Studies at the University of Antwerp, holds public lectures in University of Tartu and Estonian National Museum.

Suzie Thomas is Professor of Heritage Studies at the University of Antwerp, Belgium. Her main interests are participatory approaches to heritage research, the so-called dark heritage, and amateur contacts with the archaeological heritage. Thomas defended her doctoral dissertation at the International Center for Cultural and Heritage Studies at the University of Newcastle. Prior to joining the University of Antwerp, she worked as an Associate Professor of Cultural Heritage Studies at the University of Helsinki. In April, Thomas will teach at the University of Tartu with the support of the ERASMUS + academic mobility programme.

12 April at 16.00 - presentation “Participatory approaches to heritage” in Estonian National Museum. More information in Facebook (in Estonian).

13 April at 12.15 - lecture “Lapland’s Dark heritage” (Ülikooli 16-104).

Lapland's Dark Heritage: The material and immaterial legacy of the Second World War in Finnish Lapland

Lapland’s Dark Heritage (2014-2018) was an Academy of Finland-funded project that employed multidisciplinary perspective to investigate the impact of the Second World War in Finnish Lapland for local communities. We focused on the villages of Vuotso and Inari, and the city of Rovaniemi. We employed archaeological survey and excavation (in the context of a public archaeology approach), ethnological theories and methods, museological research, and digital ethnography. In this presentation I highlight some of our key findings and surprises that we encountered. I also discuss the legacy of the project in terms of its impact on local tourism and heritage developments, and outline follow-on research that is now in development.

14 April at 12.15 - lecture “Heritage and Crime” (Jakobi 2-213).

Taking a global perspective, this lecture provides an overview of the different kinds of crime that affect heritage and archaeological heritage in particular. I will present some of the theoretical models that criminologists and others have created to try to understand and predict heritage crimes, and also discuss the challenges and opportunities for researching heritage crime.

Photo: pixabay.com.