TMA 4

This assignment accounts for 17.5% of your overall score.

This assignment is in two parts. You should answer both parts.

Part 1 (2,000 words) (80 marks)

How and why has a preoccupation with the past become a defining feature of the modern age? Answer the question with reference to three examples, which should be selected from at least two different study weeks of Block 4. One example should come from the online module materials or the independent study for the block.

Part 2 (500 words) (20 marks)

With a general audience in mind, make a persuasive case for EITHER the retention OR the restitution/removal of one of the following objects.

• The Parthenon Marbles (currently in the British Museum)
• The statue of Edward Colston in Bristol
• The Koh-i-Noor diamond

Your case should take the form of a short newspaper article.

Part 1

Part 1 requires you to consider the manner of and motivation for the modern fascination with the past. In order to answer it, you will need to consider your chosen examples of this fascination not merely for their own sake but with reference to the wider phenomenon of modernity. You should take care to choose examples that offer you plenty of scope for developing an argument about the issues raised by the question. Consider how your chosen examples have been viewed and why they have become a focus of interest and/or controversy.

For the purposes of this assignment, you should understand example in the question to mean not simply individual images and objects, but also to embrace monuments, memorial sites and other forms of cultural heritage through which people of the modern era have engaged with the past. You should aim to include a range of different approaches to the past in your selection; an example might variously be inspired by, commemorate, display or preserve the past. You are also advised to select examples in a range of media. In discussing each example, you should take care to do so with close reference to its visual aspects.

In making your selection, you should also take care to include examples from at least two different weeks of the module. This requirement allows you, should you so wish, to weight your answer towards the period either before c.1900 (if you select Chapters 1 and 2) or after c.1900 (if you select Chapters 3 and 4). You may, of course, also choose examples from across the full chronological range of the module. Whichever approach you adopt, you should make sure that you take account of the ways in which understandings of, and approaches to, the past have shifted over the last 250 years or so.

In discussing your examples, you should also take account of their geographic context, bearing in mind that people have engaged with the past in different ways in different locations. If you choose an example from a non-Western context, you will need to address issues raised by considering it in the context of Western understandings of the past. If such an example is now housed in a Western museum or gallery, you will need to consider the issues raised by its display in such an institution. You should not choose any of three examples in the list for Part 2.

Part 2

Part 2 requires you to develop an argument for or against a particular course of action in relation to a contentious heritage object. It also requires you to do so in language that will be intelligible and engaging to a non-specialist audience with no prior knowledge of the issues raised.

You will first need to decide which of the three objects listed above you will write about. Listed under , you will find links to a selection of articles. These articles will provide you with information on each object that you can use to help you build your case.

You will also need to decide whether to make your case as a newspaper article or as a radio talk. Whichever option you choose, you should make sure you make your case in accessible terms that are clearly different from the language you would use for a formal essay.

In framing your argument, you will need to set up the broad terms of the relevant debate as well as conveying the basic information about the particular object that you are discussing. You should think carefully about the order in which you introduce your points to your reader or listener.

In developing your case, you should also think carefully about the concepts and the vocabulary you use. You should consider, for example, if any terms you use are loaded ones that imply a particular stance on the issues without actually stating it.

In addition, you will find it helpful to think through the implications of the course of action that you are recommending. Consider, for example, where the object in question is to be (or has been) removed from and where it might go instead. Likewise, if an object is being retained, what are the alternatives?

Finally, you are advised to think about the reader or listener to whom your case is addressed. What kind of values, expectations or assumptions do you think that they might bring to their reading of or listening to your case?

Bear in mind that you have only a relatively small number of words in which to make your case. You will therefore need to convey the basic information about the object in a succinct way. You will also need to decide which are the crucial issues on which to focus in making your case.

Part 1

In common with the other assessment tasks that you will undertake while studying A236, this assignment tests your effective engagement with, and knowledge of, the module materials; therefore, you are strongly advised to focus on these rather than undertaking any further research.

You will find relevant material across Book 4 and the online materials for Weeks 1720.

Part 2

You should refer back Book 4, Chapter 4, and the accompanying online material for a discussion of relevant issues. You will also find some discussion of the Parthenon Marbles and the issues they raise in Book 1, Chapter 1.

See below for further information on all three objects listed above. These links are intended to provide you with a starting point for your own investigation of the object that you choose to write about.

• The Parthenon Marbles:
• Tessa Solomon,
• FutureLearn,
• The British Museum,
• Lauren Bursey,
• The statue of Edward Colston in Bristol:
• Martin Farrer,
• Claudine van Hensbergen,
• Edward Chancellor,
• Helen McConnell Simpson,
• The Koh-i-Noor diamond:
• Lorraine Boissoneault,
• Saurav Dutt,
• Zareer Masani,
• Brahmjot Kaur,