Cécile Fabre: Who Should Own our Cultural Heritage?

Cécile Fabre, is a Senior Research Fellow at All Souls College, Oxford and Professor of Political Philosophy at the University of Oxford (in the Faculty of Philosophy), and will be presenting the seventh paper of Michaelmas Term: “Who Should Own our Cultural Heritage?”.

This seminar takes place in Massey Room, at Balliol College, University of Oxford (Broad St, Oxford OX1 3BJ) at 5:00pm on Thursday 28 November.

Abstract:

Suppose that, in the wake of the fire at Notre-Dame and daunted by the scale of the damage, the French state had decided to sell off the cathedral, which it owns, to the highest bidder - say, Bernard Arnault, the founder and CEO of LVMH, one of the richest persons in the world and a known patron of the arts. Would it have been morally entitled to do so? This might seem too fanciful a scenario to contemplate, yet historic city centres, some of which (both in the Global North and in the Global South) are on the World Heritage's List, comprise mostly privately owned buildings, while vast quantities of moveable artefacts (paintings, sculptures, rare books and musical instruments) are owned, legally, by non-state actors. 

In this lecture, I argue that non-state actors, including private, for-profit corporations, may rightfully own parts of humankind's common cultural heritage, so long as they fulfill duties of stewardship in respect of that heritage. I then consider one possible challenge to my account - that there are parts of our common cultural heritage which ought to be owned by citizens acting jointly, via state institutions. 

This event is open to anyone. No registration needed.

Pre-reading is desirable and strongly suggested, but not a requirement to attend.

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