Date: Thursday, August 27, 3:30-5:00 pm EST on Zoom
Panelists: Sanchita Balachandran, Elizabeth Marlowe, and Alexander Nagel
Moderators: Machal Gradoz and Morag M. Kersel
The AIA want to provide some concrete guidance and steps that their members can take to be better accomplices in diversifying archaeology, museums, and cultural heritage. Many AIA members are also educators, so we are going to start with deconstructing, decolonizing and rewriting syllabi, lesson plans, and assignments. Please join us for an online panel discussion where we discuss best practices, successes, and failures in creating and implementing a more diversified and inclusive teaching strategy.
Sanchita Balachandran is Associate Director and conservator of the Johns Hopkins Archaeological Museum and Senior Lecturer in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at Johns Hopkins University. She conducts research of the Archaeological Museum’s collection and teaches courses related to the technical study and analysis of ancient objects, and the history, ethics and practice of art conservation. Recent syllabi can be found here.
Machal Gradoz is a PhD Candidate in Classical Archaeology at the University of Michigan. Her interests include the late Hellenistic-early Roman period material culture of northwest Greece/southwest Albania as well as how Classics and archaeology can serve communities outside of academia through public scholarship.
Morag M. Kersel is Associate Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Museum Studies Minor at DePaul University. She teaches classes on museum justice and activism, cultural heritage, and archaeology.
Elizabeth Marlowe teaches ancient and medieval art history at Colgate University, where she is also the founder and director of the Program in Museum Studies. Her current research focuses on ancient art in museum contexts.
Alexander Nagel (PhD, University of Michigan) is Assistant Professor in the Department of Art History at the State University of New York’s F.I.T. and a residential Research Associate at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Originally from Berlin in Germany, he enjoys teaching and being actively involved in the publication of materials from fieldwork in Iran (Persepolis, Susa, Pasargadae) and Greece (Aitoloakarnania) while working on the contemporary legacies and the world of Yemen and South Arabia around the world.
