Heritage has to a great extent been re-fashioned as a concept since its identification a quarter of a century ago with a very narrow sense of nostalgia for the past. The concept has shifted to concerns for both the human-created and the natural environment in the face of climate change, disruption through conflict and the constantly shifting balance between public and private financing of the heritage sector.
As individual records are lost and resources once thought sacred broken up, we have the chance to capture and store (both materially and digitally) a great deal of material which can be exploited in new and creative ways.
Examples of Culture and Heritage research at Sussex include:
- A History of the Berliner Ensemble 1949-1999
- The visual culture of New Brutalism in 1950s Britain
- The Women’s Liberation Oral History Project
- Happiness and economic wellbeing in 1930s Britain
- The Thomas Paine Project
- Examining epitaphs on British gravestones, c. 1700-2000, as a means of illuminating changes in popular religious beliefs and commemorative practices across the period