Twenty Years of Heritage Studies - the Showbiz of History?

This paper is part of a collective retrospective convened in 2014 looking back at various disciplines in the Humanities at Wits over the 20 years of democracy. The seeds of the heritage studies programme at Wits were sown in 1990 when it became apparent that the apartheid regime was about to cede to a more democratic regime, creating a new opportunity for Wits academics to engage with public institutions. The paper discusses this moment against the background of the History Workshop at Wits, which hosted some of the discussions about public culture in the early 1990s. It attempts to elucidate the origins of the heritage studies programme at the university and describe some of its features. The paper follows the migration of the programme from Social Sciences to the Wits School of Arts, outlining some of the philosophical ramifications of its relocation.