While we are currently experiencing a 'heritage fever', resulting in frantic attempts to identify, classify, preserve, and interpret our cultural heritage, the question as to why we are so obsessed with heritage requires examination. While the preservation of cultural heritage perhaps seems primarily of an aesthetic nature, critical studies have revealed heritage conservation to be part of the making of nations and empires, hence intrinsic to processes of nationalism and colonialism. This module deconstructs some of these roles and functions of cultural heritage Yet, in the current heritage revival we can discern other engagements with cultural heritage that may be understood as part of a politics of self-realisation. Heritage can thus contribute to overcome the legacies of slavery, colonialism and civic conflict, thus restoring dignity and providing recognition. Moreover, heritage can provide migrants with 'roots' and create a sense of place in a globalising world. This seminar examines how heritage is used in an attempt to use 'cultural as cure' and therefore looks at what can be called, for want of a better term, 'heritage healing.