Addressing today’s ethical challenges in cultural stewardship

“Ethical Challenges in Cultural Stewardship,” the 13^th biennial Flair Symposium, takes place April 4-6, 2019, at the Ransom Center.

Archivists, attorneys, conservators, curators, educators, librarians, scholars and others will discuss:

•Where does a collection belong? Who decides?
•What happens when ethical issues in the present call for researchers and institutions to re-examine existing collections?
•How should ethics inform decisions about deaccessioning, repatriation, change in mission and collection development?
•How should institutions and communities responsibly collect, curate, conserve and provide access to records of oppression, hate and violence?
•How should institutions and communities confront and rectify exclusionary practices?

In the symposium’s keynote, New York Times bestselling writer Joyce Maynard will reflect on her correspondence, at age 18, with J.D. Salinger, its consequences, what happened to those letters 25 years later, and what we can learn from the story in the age of the #MeToo movement.

Panels will put individuals from varied fields and institutions in conversation with one another. The event ends with a discussion of how organizations and individuals can build more ethical organizations.

Registration and details online. The symposium will be webcast. 

Since 1994, the Ransom Center’s Flair Symposium has continued the work of editor, writer and artist Fleur Cowles and her landmark Flair magazine by convening interdisciplinary conversations unlikely to happen elsewhere.

The symposium is generously supported by The Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation and the Fleur Cowles Endowment Fund.

Follow the symposium using #flair2019.