Faculty Profiles
September 22, 2010
Chilton and Silberman Named Editors of International Heritage Journal
Elizabeth S. Chilton, chair of the Department of Anthropology, and Neil Silberman, a lecturer in the department, have been named co-editors of the renamed international peer-reviewed journal, Heritage & Society, published by Left Coast Press, Inc. Chilton is the founding director of the Center for Heritage and Society at the University of Massachusetts, and Silberman is coordinator of projects and policy initiatives for the Center.
The successor journal to Heritage Management, Heritage & Society will be a global, peer-reviewed journal for scholarly, professional, and community reflection on the cultural, political, and economic impacts of heritage on contemporary society. It will examine the current social roles of collective memory, historic preservation, cultural resource management, public interpretation, cultural preservation and revitalization, sites of conscience, diasporic heritage, education, legal/legislative developments, cultural heritage ethics, and central heritage concepts such as authenticity, significance, and value.
Heritage & Society will be an engaging forum about tangible and intangible heritage for those who work with international and governmental organizations, academic institutions, private heritage consulting and Cultural Resource Management firms, and local, associated, and indigenous communities. With a special emphasis on social science approaches and an international perspective, the journal facilitates lively, critical discussion and dissemination of practical data among heritage professionals, planners, policymakers, and community leaders.
Heritage & Society will include peer-reviewed research on policy, legislation, ethics, and methods in heritage management and will showcase exemplary projects and models of public interpretation and interaction. A peer-reviewed Forum section presents position statements and responses on key current issues. The journal also includes reviews of books, web pages, exhibits, and resources in various media, regions, and languages.
Elizabeth Chilton’s research, publications, and teaching focus on the archaeology of New England, Native history, maize horticulture, social complexity, cultural resource management, and the analysis of material culture. She is the director of the UMass Amherst Field School in Archaeology, and has directed or co-directed eleven such field schools at UMass and Harvard University over the past 20 years. Chilton received her MA in 1991 and her PhD in 1996, both in anthropology, from UMass Amherst. She was an assistant and then associate professor of anthropology at Harvard University from 1996-2001, and has been on the UMass Amherst faculty since 2001. Recent publications include: Nantucket and Other Native Places (co-edited with Mary Lynne Rainey, 2010 SUNY Press); “Building Collaborative Archaeologies from the Ground Up: Two Case Studies from New England” (co-authored with Siobhan M. Hart, Collaborative Archaeologies 2010); and “Teaching Heritage Values through Field Schools: Cases Studies from New England,” (Heritage Values: The Past in Contemporary Society, edited by Hillary Soderland, George Smith, and Phyllis Messenger, Left Coast Press, 2010).
Neil Silberman, before coming to UMass, was director of the Ename Center for Public Archaeology and Heritage Presentation in Belgium. A 1991 Guggenheim Fellow, he has been actively involved in the field of public heritage interpretation and presentation, working on projects in Europe, the United States, and the Middle East. Since 2005 Silberman has been president of the ICOMOS International Scientific Committee on Interpretation and Presentation (ICIP). He is a member of the ICOMOS International Advisory Committee and Scientific Council. Silberman is author, with Professor Israel Finkelstein, of The Bible Unearthed: Archaeology's New Vision of Ancient Israel and the Origin of Its Sacred Texts (2001) and David and Solomon: In Search of the Bible's Sacred Kings and the Roots of the Western Tradition (2006). He has written many books on the themes of history, heritage, and contemporary society, most recently Archaeology and Society in the 21st Century (2001), Heavenly Powers (1998), and The Message and the Kingdom (1997). Silberman is editor-in-chief of the forthcoming Oxford Companion to Archaeology, a contributing editor for Archaeology Magazine, and a member of the editorial boards of the International Journal of Cultural Property and Near Eastern Archaeology.
The Center for Heritage and Society at UMass Amherst is a multidisciplinary initiative that crafts new approaches to heritage conservation and communication around the world. CHS offers research opportunities for scholars working in heritage related fields such as archaeology, history, environmental science, landscape architecture and regional planning, European studies, Native American Indian Studies, Afro-American Studies, Classics, legal studies, and public policy. Additionally, the Center provides undergraduate and graduate students with training and experience in heritage planning and management. Coming up in May, CHS will host a major international conference, Why Does the Past Matter?
Heritage & Society Editorial Staff
Editors:
Elizabeth S. Chilton, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
Neil A. Silberman, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
Associate Editor:
Cornelius Holtorf, Linnaeus University, Sweden
Forum Editor:
Sophia Labadi, Independent Scholar, France
Reviews Editor and Editorial Administrator:
Angela M. Labrador, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
Resources Editors:
Donald Craib, Cultural Heritage Partners, USA
Susan Forbes, Kotuku Consultancy, New Zealand
