President's Message

Dear ACHS member

It is with real pleasure that we bring you the first of a new series of regular ACHS newsletters. The recent relaunch of the Association's website and membership database has been a great success, and well over 1000 people from around the world have now signed up to be members.

I would like to thank those of you who have submitted content suggestions and postings in recent weeks - this is all helping the site become a valuable and valued resource for those working in critical heritage. Since relaunching just over a month ago we have been continually updating sections, and the intention is to keep adding new material going forward. To that end, if you have information about conferences, workshops, vacancies, or courses that you would like us to consider including on the site, please get in touch.

Like all of you I'm sure, I can't help but feel depressed and dismayed by international affairs today. The media tell us about the destruction of archaeological artefacts in Syria and Iraq, but what we are currently witnessing suggests the need to ask far more ambitious and challenging questions about heritage, and its capacity for creating conflict and distrust, as well as dialogue, respect and humility. As an association concerned with such themes and the links between culture, power, identity, citizenship and cross-cultural dialogue, we are well placed to offer some much needed critical thinking and informed opinion here. I would like us to turn our attention to such questions more directly in 2016 and am currently working through how we can go about that. If you have any suggestions or ideas for events or other initiatives, I'd be very interested to hear from you. 

2016 promises to be an exciting and productive year for the Association. If you feel inclined to get more involved, the items below offer various ways of doing so, and we have a number of sub-committees within the Exec which can provide assistance if you have questions or ideas.

Best wishes for the new year.

Tim Winter

Research Professor, Deakin University, Melbourne

Request for Website Content
We have now established a series of pages dedicated to heritage related:

• courses
• research centres
• professional organisations
• journals
• book series
• vacancies
• conferences

If you have suggestions for postings on these pages, please drop us a line.

ACHS Book Review Editor - Vacancy
We are seeking an ACHS Book Reviews Editor. The role entails coordinating reviews of newly published books; reviews will be undertaken by ACHS members and published on the website. Tasks include building relationships with publishers, corresponding with reviewers, and tracking and proof reading reviews. Facility to receive and forward-on books is also required.
If you are interested in taking on this role please submit a brief Expression of Interest via email, indicating your capacity to undertake the role, to the ACHS secretariat, Amy Clarke, by 15th January 2016 (Please note the initial term for this position is 12 months and it comes with no financial support).
 

Find a Member
One of the features of the new website you may not have discovered is the ability to search the online membership database. This allows you to find people according to their location (city/country) and interests. We have designed this to help members create informal meet-ups when traveling, assist event organisers, source expertise and help build meaningful networks within the association. Feel free to give it a go by visiting the Membership Directory.
 

Maximize Your Membership Benefits - Complete Your Profile
Further to the item above, we are keen to see members complete their online details as fully as possible, including a summary of interests, expertise and institutional experience. The Association is proving a valuable platform for people networking and finding experts with particular skill sets, and an accurate and comprehensive Membership Directory is vital for this. We therefore encourage you to complete the various boxes on your profile page, so that other members who are organising events, traveling to your city, and so forth can find you. We appreciate your assistance in helping us to build the Association over the coming months and years.

Conference News

2016 Montreal Conference - Change of Dates (3-8th June) and Registration Now Open

Hosted by the Canada Research Chair on Urban Heritage at Université du Québec in Montreal, and its partners Concordia University and the Centre for Oral History and Digital Storytelling, the  ACHS2016 Conference “What does heritage change?” will be held in Montreal, Canada, from June 3rd to June 8th. More than a thousand proposals for sessions, round tables, art installations and performances, papers, and posters, were received from 65 countries, across all 5 continents. The conference is open to all with a view to supporting continual structuring debates on the role of heritage in citizenship and political space as a living environment, as a source of identity, and as a reflection of the interrelations that human beings sustain with time and space.

Registration is now open: http://achs2016.uqam.ca/en/registration/registration-information.html

Or, if you have problems reaching the conference main website, https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/patrimoine/en/ACHS2016

2020 Conference - Call for Proposals to Host
The biennial ACHS Conference is the major event of the Association and brings together hundreds of heritage scholars and professionals from around the globe. Formal bids for the 2020 ACHS Conference will be accepted until March 31, 2016. If you are interested in submitting a proposal, please get in touch with Meredith Holmgren, who will be able to provide you with more information in the new year. Voting for the location of the 2020 conference will take place at the Montreal conference in June.