Associate Professor of History and American Studies Nabil Al-Tikriti participated in the Integrating Humanitarian Response and Cultural Heritage in Disasters workshop on Oct. 6-7. Sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution’s Cultural Rescue Initiative (CRI), the workshop was held at the National Museum of Natural History, in Washington, D.C.
On the first day, Al-Tikriti joined 26 other officials and experts in following presentations on cultural heritage protection in conflict and disaster zones, both domestic and international (including two presentations on efforts underway in Syria). On the second day, he provided a 15-minute response to the previous day’s presentations and discussions, before joining the other participants in deliberative breakout sessions.
Invited because of both his prior work on the looting of Iraqi manuscript collections following the 2003 Anglo-American-Australian invasion and his ongoing work with MSF/Doctors Without Borders USA, Al-Tikriti joined officials and representatives from the Smithsonian Institution, State Department, U.S. Institute of Peace, FEMA, American Red Cross, World Bank, National Endowment for the Humanities, National Park Service, National Guard, the Rose Museum at Brandeis University, George Washington University and the University of Pennsylvania to provide a variety of perspectives on potential institutional, legal and communication structures in the field of cultural rescue in the years to come.
