Mirjam S. Brusius is Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Cologne. Her research focuses on critical heritage and museum studies, material culture, and the global and colonial histories of collecting, preservation, and display. Her work explores the circulation and preservation of objects and images across Europe and the Middle East, as well as the politics of preservation, destruction, and storage as sites of knowledge and contestation.  With particular attention to the Eastern Mediterranean, she examines how heritage sites, museums, and archives have been shaped by imperial formations, political transformation, and local engagements. Her current research investigates how societies in the Eastern Mediterranean have related to heritage sites in modern history.