Dr. Dan Hicks is a professor of contemporary archaeology at the University of Oxford, as well as the curator of World Archaeology at the Pitt Rivers Museum and a fellow of St Cross College at Oxford. There he works on the material and visual culture of the past, as well as the history of anthropology and archaeology. He has published extensively on issues of modern-day museum colonialism, national colonial narratives, and repatriation. His book, The Brutish Museum: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution, discusses the case study of the Benin Bronzes and their role in the future of museum ethics. His new book, Every Monument Will Fall: A Story of Remembering and Forgetting (published May 2025), examines the legacies kept by monuments and museums, and a discussion of what it means to change the narrative.
Listen in, as Dr. Hicks discusses the role of modern museums in colonial mythologies, and what a path forward might look like
Interested in more information? Check out these publications from Dr. Hicks.
Hicks, Dan. The Brutish Museums: The Benin Bronzes, Colonial Violence and Cultural Restitution. Pluto Press, 2020.
Hicks, Dan. 2023. “The British Museum is an anachronism – here’s how to fix it.“ The Telegraph
Hicks, Dan. Every Monument Will Fall: A Story of Remembering and Forgetting. Hutchinson Heinemann, 2025.
Dr. Hicks has also written extensively in public-facing publications, including in The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Economist, and many others, which are available on his website: https://www.danhicks.uk/essays)
Looking for a transcript of this episode? Click here.
Academic Publications
Clegg, Margaret. Human Remains: Curation, Reburial and Repatriation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2020.
Gerstenblith, P. Cultural Objects and Reparative Justice: A Legal and Historical Analysis. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2024.
Marstine, Janet, ed. The Routledge Companion to Museum Ethics: Redefining Ethics for the Twenty-First Century Museum. London: Routledge, 2011.
Non-Academic Publications
Digital Benin: “Explore Digital Benin.” Digital Benin
Nesta Kupemba, Danai. 2025. “Netherlands to return stolen Benin Bronzes to Nigeria.” BBC.
Pitt Rivers Museum: “The Restitution of Knowledge: Artefacts as Archives in the (post)colonial Museum.” Pitt Rivers Museum.
Smithsonian. 2022. “Smithsonian Returns 29 Benin Bronzes to the National Commission for Museums and Monuments in Nigeria.” Smithsonian.
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