Andrew Carnegie Lecture Series with Professor Richard Kurin
Andrew Carnegie Lecture Series with Professor Richard Kurin
On campus
Date: Thursday 04 October 2018
Time: 18:00 - 20:00
Venue: Kelvin Gallery
Category:
Speaker: Professor Richard Kurin
For the sixth annual Andrew Carnegie Lecture, we are delighted to welcome Dr Richard Kurin to the University of Glasgow.
The Andrew Carnegie Lecture Series, funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, aims to bring some of the world's most important thinkers to Scotland to engage with local audiences in a vibrant exchange of knowledge and ideas in the arts, sciences, education and international affairs.
Please see below for important event information:
Date: Thursday 04 October 2018
Venue: Kelvin Gallery, University of Glasgow
Doors open: 5.30pm
Lecture starts: 6.00pm
Drinks reception: 7.15pm
Event concludes: 8.00pm
Dr. Richard Kurin is the Smithsonian Distinguished Scholar and Ambassador-at-Large, the first person so designated in the 171-year history of the Institution. As a member of the Smithsonian’s senior leadership team, Kurin focuses on strategic direction, institutional partnerships, public representation, philanthropic support and special initiatives. At the beginning of 2018, Dr. Kurin took on the additional duties of serving as Acting Director of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and Freer Gallery of Art.
Kurin also oversees the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative. He led efforts to save heritage in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake and has overseen projects for saving heritage endangered by natural disaster in Nepal and in the United States, and by human conflict in Mali, Egypt, Iraq and Syria. He serves on the U.S. Department of State Cultural Heritage Coordinating Committee and on the board of the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage (ALIPH), a newly created international foundation supporting heritage recovery projects. Prior to his current roles, Kurin served as the Smithsonian’s Acting Provost and Under Secretary for Museums and Research from 2015, and from 2007 served as Under Secretary for History, Art and Culture. He was responsible for oversight of all of the Smithsonian’s national museums, scientific research and cultural centers. For two decades before that, Kurin directed the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage overseeing the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings.
An anthropologist with a PhD from the University of Chicago, Kurin specialized in the study of South Asia and Muslim societies. He has held Fulbright and Social Science Research Council fellowships, taught at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and authored six books and scores of scholarly articles. He has been honored by the International Council of Museums, Harvard University, and the American Anthropological Association among others, and is an elected fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He served on the U.S. National Commission for UNESCO and helped draft an international treaty, now ratified by 170 nations, to safeguard living cultural heritage. Kurin serves as Smithsonian liaison to the U.S. President’s Committee for the Arts and the Humanities and the White House Historical Association.