The Malady of UNESCO’s Archive

Authors

  • Peter Jackson History of Religions, Stockholm University, Sweden

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.3384/cu.2000.1525.1461015

Keywords:

ultural heritage, Eugenics, Julian Huxley, Transhumanism, UNESCO, Voyager spacecrafts

Abstract

This paper offers a critical examination of UNESCO’s cultural heritage conventions with special regard to the declared transhumanism of the organization’s first director-general, Sir Julian Huxley. While Huxley’s advocation of eugenics is a well-established fact, this part of his intellectual heritage is usually not considered overtly aligned to his ideas about cultural preservation. On closer consideration, however, improvement and preservation (both cultural and biological) turn out to be closely associated concerns in the field of Huxley’s intellectual vision.

References

Derrida, Jacques (1995): Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, translated by Eric Prenowitz, Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Ginzburg, Carlo (1999): History, Rhetoric, and Proof, Hanover, NH: University Press of New England.

Huxley, Julian (1946): UNESCO. Its Purpose and its Philosophy. Preparatory Commission of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

Huxley, Julian (1957): “Man’s Place and Role in Nature”, New Bottles for New Wine, New York: Harper& Brothers.

Huxley, Julian (1964): Evolutionary Humanism, New York: Prometheus Books.

Rappaport, Roy A. (1999): Ritual and Religion in the Making of Humanity, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI: 10.1017/CBO9780511814686

Sahlins, Marshall (2008): The Western Illusion of Human Nature, Chicago: Prickly Paradigm Press.

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Published

2014-10-01

How to Cite

Jackson, P. (2014) “The Malady of UNESCO’s Archive”, Culture Unbound, 6(5), pp. 1015–1024. doi: 10.3384/cu.2000.1525.1461015.

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Section

Independent Articles