Postmodernism and the heritage experience

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

The complexity and ambivalence of cultural experience is a well‐known aspect of consumerism and late capitalism. Partly a search for the authentic and partly the consumption of the popular, such experience presents us with a set of challenges ‐‐ about what is real and what is image, what is itself and what is irony, what is historically so and what has been detached from historical context. Experience is increasingly a commodity provided by tourism and the heritage industry. Heritage is an area where postmodernism offers unique relevant perspectives. The article considers these issues as they arise in teaching heritage courses in higher education.