“Who Owns Antiquity? Museums, Repatriation, and Armed Conflict”, was the question Professor C. Brian Rose, FAAR’92, RAAR’12, the James B. Pritchard Professor of Mediterranean Archaeology and Curator-in-Charge, Mediterranean Section, University Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania, posed at the inaugural Home from Rome lecture. Home from Rome is the American Academy in Rome series in New York that features Fellows, Residents, and Affiliated Fellows reflecting on their time in Rome, their current work, and pressing issues of the day.
Academy President and CEO, Adele Chatfield-Taylor, FAAR’84, stated, “The question of what happens during and after the Rome experience is a complex and fascinating one, as every person has a different response. I have long wanted to create a forum for conversation among Fellows, Residents, Affiliated Fellows, and others, because the ongoing unfolding and collaboration after Rome are such constants. Home from Rome proposes to be just that.”
Introduced by Professor Diane C. Ahl, RAAR’13, Rothkopf Professor of Art History at Lafayette College, Professor Rose discussed the ways in which decades of viewing destruction through an archeological lens shaped his perception of contemporary war. In an effort to preserve cultural property, Rose began a sensitivity training program for American troops being deployed overseas, in order to equip them with the knowledge and skills necessary to protect items which have shaped a nation’s biography. It is Professor Rose’s belief that a nation stays alive when its culture stays alive.
With a room full of Fellows, Residents, Affiliated Fellows, Trustees, and friends of the Academy, the lecture could not have been more timely. The evening concluded with a poignant reflection by Professor Rose on the lasting effects of his experiences at the American Academy in Rome and the title of this new lecture series: “I ask myself. ‘Is there ever a time when you are Home from Rome?’ I think if you have been a part of the Academy community or if you had the privilege of benefiting in some way from the Academy’s programs then there is never really a time when...Rome is not your home.”
We hope you will be able to join us for the full series of Home from Rome lectures:
Tuesday, 5 November 2013
Stephen J. Kieran, FAAR’81, FAIA, and James Timerlake, FAAR'83, FAIA,
December date to be confirmed
Adele Chatfield-Taylor, FAAR’84
Wednesday, 8 January 2014
Peter J. Bell, FAAR’13
Tuesday, 11 February 2014
Maira Kalman, AFAAR’12
Wednesday, 19 March 2014
Michael J. Waters, FAAR’11
Thursday, 8 May 2014
Marina Rustow, FAAR’07
Details about upcoming presentations will be provided in the American Academy in Rome monthly news update.