A memorial conference entitled “Cultural Heritage Now – The Legacy of Donny George Youkhanna” will be held Wednesday, April 27, 2011 from 4:30 – 6:30 at the Rutgers Student Center in New Brunswick , New Jersey. Details below.

Cultural Heritage Now:

Iraq and Beyond
The Legacy of Donny George Youkhanna

Wednesday, April 27, 2011
4:30-6:30

Rutgers Student Center
Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
126 College Ave
New Brunswick, NJ 08901

The event is open to the public, but pre-registration is required. Those wishing to contribute remarks must indicate this at the time of registration.

Presentations by:

John Russell
“Preserving Iraq’s Past”
John Malcolm Russell teaches the art and archaeology of the ancient Middle East and Egypt at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, Massachusetts. He is the author of numerous articles and four books on ancient Assyria, one of which, The Final Sack of Nineveh (Yale), investigates the destruction of Sennacherib’s palace in Iraq by looters in the 1990’ s. Professor Russell has conducted archaeological excavations at Nineveh, Iraq, and Tell Ahmar, Syria. In 2003-2004 he served with the Coalition Provisional Authority as an advisor to the Iraqi Ministry of Culture in Baghdad, Iraq, where he focused on renovating the Iraq Museum and protecting archaeological sites.

Abdulamir Hamdani
“Current situation of Archaeological Sites in Iraq: Excavation and Survey Projects, Looting and Protection Efforts”
Abdulamir Hamdani received a BA in Ancient Mesopotamian Archaeology from Baghdad University in 1987. In 2001, he was appointed as archaeologist for the State Board of Antiquities (SBAH) in Iraq. He later became the antiquities inspector of the Dhiqar Antiquities Office in southern Iraq, and served as director of the Nasiriyah Museum from 2003-2009. Hamdani conducted an archaeological survey for nearly 1000 sites in the southern marshes of Iraq and headed several excavations in the region including the dig at Tell Laham (2004) and Um Al-Aqareb (2008-2009).

Gwendolen Cates
“Mourning in the Garden of Eden”
Gwendolen Cates studied Cultural Anthropology at the University of Chicago before becoming an award-winning independent documentary filmmaker, photographer, and author. Since February 2004 she has made seven trips to Iraq, most recently late December 2010. She is currently completing the feature-length film Mourning in the Garden of Eden, about the scope and richness of Iraq’s cultural heritage, the mosaic of fast-disappearing cultures born in the cradle of civilization, and the recent and ongoing destruction of this heritage. She has also been compiling a related photography series. Her photography has been published in several reputable media outlets. Ms. Cates has received multiple grants and is a sponsored artist of the New York Foundation for the Arts.

Iman R. Abdulfattah
“Egypt’s Antiquities: A State of Emergency?”
Iman R. Abdulfattah received her BA in Near Eastern Languages and Literature from New York University (NYU) in 1996. She went on to obtain an MA in Islamic Art and Architecture from the American University in Cairo (AUC) in 2002. From 2005-2010, she worked for Egypt’s Supreme Council of Antiquities (SCA) as an Islamic art historian. She was involved in a number of museum and heritage projects, foremost among them was the renovation of the Museum of Islamic Art. She is currently pursuing a doctorate degree in Art History and Archaeology at the Institute of Fine Arts at NYU.

Elizabeth Stone
Title TBA
Professor, Department of Anthropology, SUNY Stony Brook

Patty Gerstenblith
“One Legacy of Donny George: Legal Changes in the Protection of Cultural Property after the 2003 Iraq War”
Dr. Gerstenblith is Distinguished Research Professor of Law and Director of the Center for Art, Museum, and Cultural Heritage Law at DePaul University. She is also the founding president of the Lawyers’ Committee for Cultural Heritage Preservation. She serves as senior advisor to the International Arts and Cultural Property Committee of the American Bar Association’s Section on International Law and served as editor-in-chief of the International Journal of Cultural Property (1995-2002) and as a member of the United States Cultural Property Advisory Committee (2000-2003) at the U.S. Department of State. She teaches and publishes in the field of cultural heritage and law and the arts.

Moderated by:

Charles G. Häberl. Director, Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Rutgers University
Charles Häberl is an Assistant Professor in the Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures, and the Director of the Rutgers Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Originally a student of archaeology, he specialized in epigraphy, the study of languages through inscriptions, and received his PhD from Harvard University in 2006. His current research focuses upon the study of the Aramaic language and its rich cultural heritage both through epigraphic sources and through the testimony of living Aramaic speakers from Iraq and Iran.