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Distinguished Lecture Series Lunch Talk | The Brutish Museums and the 'Decade of Returns'

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Each quarter, the Stanford Archaeology Center invites prominent archaeologists from around the globe to be in residence for a week as a Distinguished Lecturer. During their residency, the Distinguished Lecturer gives two lectures and interacts with faculty, postdoctoral scholars and students. Stanford Archaeology Center will host Prof. Dan Hicks from University of Oxford over two days (November 13 and November 14) for the Fall Quarter of this academic year. 

This lunch talk introduces some of the key ideas in Dan's last book, The Brutish Museums: the Benin Bronzes, colonial violence and cultural restitution (Pluto Press 2020).  In late 2024, half way through what the book described as 'a decade of returns', it considers how questions around understanding colonial history, returning stolen objects, and the wider work of anti-colonialism and anti-racism in museums have changed and developed. The talk will consider the future of the legacy institutions of museums of 'world culture', and the ongoing implication of the legacy academic disciplines of archaeology and anthropology in forms of cultural supremacy. 

 

Further Reading suggested by the speaker

Hicks, Dan 2023.  Are Museums Obsolete? Architectural Review 

Hicks, Dan 2023.  The last remaining argument against restitution has now been lost. The Art Newspaper 

Hicks, Dan 2022. UK Welcomes Restitution, Just not Anti-Colonialism. Hyperallergic.

Hicks, Dan 2021. Necrography: Death-Writing in the Colonial Museum. Journal of British Art Studies 19. 

Hicks, Dan 2020. The Brutish Museums: the Benin Bronzes, colonial violence and cultural restitution. London: Pluto Press.

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