During the Age of Imperialism, historical art pieces such as the Bust of Nefertiti were taken from their home countries and installed in major world museums.
Leading academics, authors and curators will examine whether these works should be returned to their source nations at the “Imperialism, Art & Restitution” conference March 26-27 at the School of Law.
All panel discussions will be held in the Bryan Cave Moot Courtroom of Anheuser-Busch Hall.
James Cuno, professor and director of the Courtauld Institute of Art in London, will present the keynote address on the “View From the Universal Museum.”
Talat Halman, professor at Bilkent University in Ankara, Turkey, and that country’s former minister of culture, will respond to Cuno’s lecture with “The View From the Source Nation.”
In addition to the Bust of Nefertiti, housed at the Staatliche Museum in Berlin, panel discussions will focus on the Elgin/Parthenon Marbles at the National Gallery of London and the Code of Hammurabi at the Louvre.
A separate panel will offer critical perspectives on the Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA), its administration and effectiveness.
NAGPRA, enacted in 1990, provides a process for museums and federal agencies to return Native American cultural items, human remains, funerary objects, sacred objects and objects of cultural patrimony to lineal descendents, culturally affiliated American Indian tribes and Native Hawaiian organizations.
The law school’s Whitney R. Harris Institute for Global Legal Studies is sponsoring the conference. It is free and open to the public, but registration is required.
For registration information, call Linda McClain at 935-7988. A conference agenda is available online at law.wustl.edu/igls/conferences.
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