Dr Yates giving a public lecture in Pensacola, Florida, 21 November

20 Nov 2019

As part of her visit to the University of West Florida, Dr Donna Yates will be participating in the  UWF Downtown Lecture Series. Her talk is free and open to the public and will be held at the Museum of Commerce on Thursday, 21 November starting at 7pm (reception starts at 5:30).

More details are available here: https://uwf.edu/cassh/community-outreach/experience-uwf-downtown-lecture-series/

Her talk:

“Stolen Antiquities and White Collar Crime: The Case of the Persian Guard”

In 2011 a man walked into the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts during regular opening hours and stole a 2500-year-old Persian relief of a guard valued at over $1.2 million. Many of our most respected museums house stolen antiquities. High-end auction houses and dealers sell loot on a daily basis. Upstanding citizens freely engage in this criminal market. Yet unlike with most illegal commodities, such as drugs or arms, trafficked antiquities can be openly bought and sold, and are often put on public display. How is this possible? Using the Persepolis relief as a case study, this lecture will discuss how research from criminology can be used to understand crime in the art world.