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Book: Perspectives on Intangible Natural Heritage

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Eric Dorfman is author/editor on an upcoming book for the International Council of Museums, administered by the International Committee for Museums and Collections of Natural History (NATHIST).

The topic of intangible natural heritage is new, and recently emerging as an important subject of inquiry. It describes the untouchable elements of the environment that combine to create natural objects, and help define our relationship to them. These elements can be sensory, like the sound of a landscape, or processes like natural selection. As a concept, intangible natural heritage is growing in prominence, as museums are increasingly charged safeguarding and interpreting the milieux from which their objects originate. This book is a significant advance on the subject of intangible natural heritage. No book on the topic has yet been written and current scholarship is confined to a few isolated papers.

Contents

Introduction (Eric Dorfman)
The Intangible Roots of our Tangible Heritage (Adrian Norris, Leeds City Museum, UK)
Bewilderment and wildness: the impression of the Kangaroo on British culture, 1771-1800. (Markman Ellis, Queen Mary University of London, UK)
Geological and Palaeontological Heritage (Patrick Boylan, City University London, UK)
Terra Cognita, Down and Under, Living Stones and the Sound of Stones
Reflections on Four Exhibitions (Ulrike Stottrop, Ruhr Museum, Essen, Germany)
Chinese Cricket Culture (Jin, Xing-Bao, Shanghai Institute of Entomology)
Taonga Moriori in Museum Collections (Susan Forbes, Kotuku Consultancy Ltd. & Maui Solomon, International Society of Ethnobiologists)
On Nature's Terms: Preserving the tradition of wilderness recreation in NZ (Lee Davidson – Victoria University of Wellington)
“Project INH”: A Case study on the Role of Museums in the Interpretation ofTraditional Knowledge about Natural Heritage (Venugopal, B. – National Museum of Natural History, India)
Synthesis (Eric Dorfman & Janet Carding – Australian Museum)

This book is due out in 2010. Please contact Eric Dorfman for more information.