SHORT BIO

I was born in Boston in 1950 and studied Religion at Wesleyan University and Archaeology
at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and I’ve spent most of my career writing and thinking
about the politics and contemporary meanings of the past.

After completing a series of books about the history and politics of archaeology in the
Middle East, I teamed up with my good friend and colleague Israel Finkelstein to see what
we could accomplish in the re-construction of modern views of biblical history. The
result was The Bible Unearthed (2001) which got a lot of attention, but I’m not sure it
changed many minds– particularly minds that are hardwired to believe that THEY are the
authentic heirs of the biblical tradition.

I spent 2000-2007 in Belgium, working at the Ename Center for Public Archaeology and
Heritage Presentation on heritage projects in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and
gradually came to realize just how many minds are hardwired to believe that they are the
authentic heirs of something. And yet those claims for authenticity have generally been
used as tools to get or maintain power, money, or just crude dominance. The Past has got
to be useful for something more positive and life affirming than that.

I currently teach at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and serve as the coordinator
of Projects and Policy Initiatives at the Center for Heritage and Society.

I also serve as the president of the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on
Interpretation and Presentation (ICIP) and am a member of the ICOMOS International
Advisory Committee.

SelectedWorks of Neil A. Silberman

Neil A. Silberman

University of Massachusetts - Amherst

International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS)

Links

Articles

Heritage interpretation and human rights: documenting diversity, expressing identity, or establishing universal principles?, International Journal of Heritage Studies (2012)

Postcolonial, Neo-imperial, or a Little Bit of Both?: Reflections on Museums in Lebanon, Near Eastern Archaeology (2010)

Rewriting Jewish History, Archaeology (2010)

Process Not Product: The ICOMOS Ename Charter (2008) and the Practice of Heritage Stewardship, CRM: The Journal of Heritage Stewardship (2009)

Partitioning the Past, Ha'aretz (2008)

Books

INTERPRETING THE PAST 5: The Future of Heritage (with Claudia Liuzza) (2008)

INTERPRETING THE PAST 3: Memory and Identity (with Suzanne Copping and Willem Derde) (2007)

INTERPRETING THE PAST 4: Who Owns the Past? (with Claudia Liuzza) (2007)

DAVID AND SOLOMON (with Israel Finkelstein) (2006)

INTERPRETING THE PAST 2: Heritage, New Technologies, and Local Development (with Dirk Callebaut) (2006)

Contributions to Books

Heritage Interpretation as Public Discourse: Towards a New Paradigm, Understanding Heritage (2013)

Discourses of Development: Narratives of Cultural Heritage as an Economic Resource, Heritage and Tourism: Place, Encounter, Engagement (2012)

Cultural Heritage and the Information Technologies: Facing the Grand Challenges and Structural Transformations of the 21st Century, Digital Applications for Tangible Cultural Heritage Report on the State of the Union Policies, Practices and Developments in Europe (2007)

Sustainable Heritage? Public Archaeological Interpretation and the Marketed Past, Archaeology and Capitalism: From Ethics to Politics (2007)

Beyond Theme Parks and Digitized Data: What Can Cultural Heritage Technologies Contribute to the Public Understanding of the Past?, Interdisciplinarity or The Best of Both Worlds: The Grand Challenge for Cultural Heritage Informatics in the 21st Century (2005)

Presentations

Validation, Resistance, and Exclusion: Neo-nationalist Cultural Heritage in a Globalized World, Sophia University Symposium: Cultual Heritage and Nationalism (2010)

Between Home and History, International Institute for Conservation (IIC) (2010)

The Tyranny of Narrative, Institute of Asian Cultures, Sophia University (2010)

Who Should Care for the Dead? Balancing Religious Rights with Civic Responsibilities, Archéologie du judaïsme en France et en Europe, organized by Inrap (Institut national de recherches archéologiques préventives / National Institute for Research in Preventive Archaeology) (2010)

Reports, Documents, Interpretive Plans

ICOMOS Charter for the Interpretation and Presentation of Cultural Heritage Sites (2008)

CHRONOLOGY OF THE DRAFTING, REVIEW, AND REVISION OF THE PROPOSED ICOMOS CHARTER FOR THE INTERPRETATION AND PRESENTATION OF CULTURAL HERITAGE SITES (2007)