George Mason University: History & Heritage in Cyprus: Crossroads of Civilization

Cyprus lies at the crossroads of many different civilizations, having been occupied and ruled by Mycenaean, Assyrian, Egyptian, Persian, Phoenician, Roman, Lusignan, Venetian, and Ottoman forces as well as modern British, Greek, and Turkish rule. Located in the Mediterranean Sea, its past and present are entwined within the cultural spheres of Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East. This course explores the historical and cultural landscapes of Cyprus in order to better understand the dynamically changing nation state of Cyprus, serving as a case study for us to learn how we use the past to create what we call heritage. As we in the United States continue to debate how to remember, memorialize, and commemorate our country’s civil war—debates that flared up in 2017 during public incidents over statues, memorials, and flags—we can look to countries such as Cyprus to learn how history, heritage and the processes of remembering and forgetting occur in spaces of public pedagogy (museums, memorials, parks, heritage sties, and other spaces evoking the past) in a country still coming to grips with its own civil war.