News

Contribute to our Online Conference and Edited Volume...

Dr Donna Yates and Dr Naomi Oosterman of Erasmus University Rotterdam are seeking contributions for an edited volume to be submitted for Springer’s “Studies in Art, Heritage, Law, and the Market” series.

Dr Donna Yates will be joining the V&A’s Vernon Rapley and Christie’s Dennis Ahern on a live expert online panel hosted by the Antiquities Coalition. The topic of discussion will be how the COVID-19 pandemic will effect security and crime at museums and cultural sites. The event will take place at 11am EDT on 17 June and all are invited to virtually attend. For more information...

Dr Neil Brodie will be presenting an online lecture for the Oxford Archaeological Society. The lecture, entitled “Illicit culture contact? The case of the Hobby Lobby cuneiform tablets” will be held at 16:00 BST on 2 June. Those wishing to attend the lecture online are asked to RSVP...

As part of the public conference “Violated National Heritage: Theft, Traffic & Restitution”, Dr Christos Tsirogiannis will be speaking about recent restitutions of cultural property to Greece. “This conference is aimed not only at students but also art world and museum professionals, indeed at anyone interested to hear the latest information, much of which is unpublished,...

Dr. Emiline Smith has been featured in an article in the Kathmandu Post about her work on antiquities trafficking in Nepal and Myanmar. The article is available here: https://kathmandupost.com/20/2020/03/04/everyone-i-ve-talked-to-here-has-a-story-about-art-theft (click here for archive link)

Drs Neil Brodie and Donna Yates will be speaking at a conference hosted by the Croatian Presidency of the Council of the European Union and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia. They will discuss the results of their recent European Commission-funded report focused on the illicit trafficking of antiquities in Europe. More details about the event are available...

Join several members of Trafficking Culture on their new project, Trafficking Transformations, based at Maastricht University. This is a 3 year, full time position to assist in project research. More info here: http://www.anonymousswisscollector.com/2020/02/junior-researcher-wanted-trafficking-transformations-objects-as-agents-in-transnational-criminal-networks-project.html Application deadline:...

Dr Yates has been appointed as an Associate Professor in Criminal Law and Criminology at the University of Maastricht. Maastricht will serve as a base for her new European Research Council-funded research project, Trafficking Transformations. She can be reached at her new email address: d.yates@maastrichtuniversity.nl.

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...

Dr Smith will be presenting a paper entitled “In search of excitement and sensation: participating in the global illicit cultural property trade”. More information available here: https://convention2.allacademic.com/one/asc/asc19/index.php?program_focus=view_paper&selected_paper_id=1546503&cmd=online_program_direct_link&sub_action=online_program In search of excitement...

Dr Brodie will be presenting the results of the recently-completed EU Study on trafficking of cultural goods in Europe. More details are available here: https://www.coe.int/en/web/culture-and-heritage/act-for-heritage- The event is being organised by the Commissioner for Volunteerism and Non-Governmental Organisations of the Republic of Cyprus, in co-operation with the Ministry of Foreign...

On Thursday 17 October Dr Yates will be in Brussels presenting recommendations for regulating the market for antiquities beyond import and export controls. More information about the Commission expert group on the return of cultural objects under Directive 2014/60/EU can be found here: https://ec.europa.eu/transparency/regexpert/index.cfm?do=groupDetail.groupDetail&groupID=3204...

The Trafficking Culture book has been published by Routledge! The product of years of our research, we are looking forward to feedback and discussion about it. More details are available here: https://traffickingculture.org/publications/trafficking-culture-book/ …including a limited time discount code for 20% off the list price. Trafficking Culture outlines current research and thinking...

As part of an Erasmus+ Mobility Grant, Dr Emiline Smith will be teaching at Hong Kong University from 27 September until 11 October. She will also be giving two public lectures: “Chasing the Unicorn”: The Seduction of Trading lllicit Antiquities (4PM, 2 October, Hong Kong University) and Illicit Trade in the Global City: The Roots and Routes of the Illicit Antiquities Trade in Hong Kong...

Congratulations to Dr Emiline Smith who has been awarded a grant for the project “Global synchronization and the illicit antiquities trade: understanding community crime prevention in post-earthquake Nepal and Myanmar” from the Scottish Funding Council’s Global Challenges Research Fund scheme. Together with Phacharaphorn Phanomvan na Ayudhya (Oxford University), Myanmar...

We are happy to announce that the new book, The Market for Mesoamerica: Reflections on the Sale of Pre-Columbian Antiquities, co-edited by our Donna Yates and Dr Cara Tremain is now available through the University Press of Florida. You can order the book here: http://upf.com/book.asp?id=9780813056449 Use discount code AU719 before 31 July for 50% off the list price. The Market for...

Dr Emiline Smith spoke at the Asian Criminological Society Annual Meeting, held in Cebu from 23–26 June, which was themed ‘Contextualizing Challenges in Criminology and Criminal Justice in Asia’ (see http://www.11thacsannualconference.com/). The very successful conference was attended by over 200 participants. Speakers represented a wide variety of emerging research originating from and...

Professor Simon Mackenzie will be speaking at and serving as resource person for Sub-regional Executive Symposium for Ministerial Officials on International Cooperation to Protect Cultural Properties and Curriculum and Methodology Review Meeting, from 10 to 14 June 2019 in Bangkok, Thailand. This symposium, designed by UNESCO, aims to create a high-level network of decision makers in this area...

On January 4, 2019 in San Diego, California, at the 140th Annual Meeting of the Council of the Archaeological Institute of America, Dr Neil Brodie was elected as a Corresponding Member of the AIA for achieving eminence as one of the leading researchers in the field of cultural heritage protection and the trade in antiquities. For more details,...