25th November, 2024 / 12:30 - 14:00
Stadscampus Mutsaard, s.MU.K1.3

In a world marked by ongoing global conflicts and a "post-truth" social media landscape filled with binary thinking and stereotypes, heritage education has become crucial in promoting critical awareness more than ever. By challenging dominant approaches that often result in authorised, simplified narratives of the past, the talk repositions heritage as a powerful means of cultivating critical thinking, promoting inclusivity, and fostering a dialogical understanding of conflict histories. Using the "ladder of heritage interpretation", the discussion moves from entertainment-based approaches to stages of learning, imagination, reflection, and reconciliation. The talk highlights how heritage, through metaphorical examples such as university tutorials and tools like ChatGPT, can encourage open dialogue and questioning of the past from diverse perspectives, breaking down stereotypes and binary views prevalent in the digital era.

About Yujie Zhu​

Yujie Zhu is an Associate Professor at the Centre for Heritage and Museum Studies at the Australian National University in Australia. He is currently a visiting fellow at Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany. Yujie earned his PhD in anthropology from Heidelberg University in Germany. His research focuses on the cultural politics of the past within various heritage and memory spaces. He is the author and editor of 8 books, including the recent monograph China’s Heritage through History (2024), Heritage Tourism (2021), and the recent edited collection Heritage, Conflict, and Peace-Building (2024). Yujie served as the vice-president of the Association of Critical Heritage Studies from 2014 to 2020 and is an expert member of the ICH Committee of ICOMOS.