
Current affiliation 1) director of FARO. Flemish Interface for Cultural Heritage, Priemstraat 51, BE 1000 Brussels, BELGIUM (www.faronet.be) : contact: marc.jacobs@faronet.be ; 2) professor critical heritage studies and holder of the UNESCO chair on critical heritage studies and the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage, Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), Pleinlaan 2, BE 1000 Brussels, Belgium www.vub.ac.be, I teach the following courses: “Heritage and ethnology” and “Critical Heritage Studies”.
Previous affiliations: researcher University Ghent (1985-1987), researcher European University Institute (1987-1991), researcher UFSIA/University Antwerp (1991-1995), teaching assistant VUB (1992-1999), director Vlaams Centrum voor Volkscultuur (1999-2007), Katholieke Universiteit Brussel (associate professor 2007-2008), director FARO (2008-present) and professor VUB (2011-present).
Link with UNESCO :
Marc Jacobs has been involved in drafting, elaborating, implementing and analyzing the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage since 2001. He represented Belgium in the Intergovernmental Committee between 2006 and 2008 (draft of the first set of operational directives) and will be part of the delegation of Belgium in the Intergovernmental Committee and the General Assembly of the 2003 Convention between 2012 and 2016. He is on the roster of UNESCO consultants of the 2003 Convention. He is member of the Flemish UNESCO commission (2006-2016). He is founding member of the Belgian/Flemish UNESCO Memory of the World Committee.(2014)
Studies: University of Ghent (1981 - 1985), MA in History, with thesis (1985, 3 volumes, 535 + CXVII pp ) on: "Charivari” or “rough music”. An interdisciplinary study of popular justice in Flanders (17th century-20th century)” and Vrije Universiteit Brussel with Ph. D. (1998, 4 volumes, 1048 pp.) on "Paratexts, networks and conventions in the Spanish Netherlands and Franche-Comté (1621-1678): the Chifflet family from Besançon".
Selection of 5 recent publications
Marc Jacobs, Bruegel and Burke were here! Examining the criteria implicit in the UNESCO paradigm of safeguarding ICH: the first decade, in: International Journal of Intangible Heritage, 9, 2014, pp. 99-117; JACOBS (M.), Criteria, Apertures and Envelopes. ICH Directives and Organs in Operation, in: MISAKO (O.)(ed.), Criteria and the Lists. Ten years 2003 UNESCO ICH Convention, Tokyo, International Research Centre for Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Asia-Pacific Region, 2013, pp. 132-142; special issue of Volkskunde, 115, 2014, 3 on Brokers, Facilitators and Mediation. Critical Success (F)Actors for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage; JACOBS (M.), Commensal Soft Power Tools for Elites in European States: Networks and Dramaturgy between Divergence and Convergence’, in: Food & History, 10, 2012, nr. 1, pp. 49-68; JACOBS (M.) & SCHOLLIERS (P.)(eds.), Eating Out in Europe. Picnics, Gourmet Dining and Snacks since the Late Eighteenth Century, Oxford-New York, Berg
Publishers, 2003, 409 p
Sessions in which Prof. Marc Jacobs participates
13:30
13:30
- 14.00 Serving Inter Alia. Beyond White castles, Imagineering, UNESCO and Other World Fairs: Edible Chronotopes and Parafood
- Participant Prof. Marc Jacobs (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) |
- 13:30 - 14:00 | 30 minutes Part of: At the UNESCO Feast: Foodways across Global Heritage Governance I
- Are foodways and culinary traditions the missing “f-words”? The domains mentioned in article 2.2 of the 2003 UNESCO Convention for the safeguard...
- Paper
19:00
19:00
- Film Series: De engel van Doel
- Signup required Concordia, LB Building - LB 125
- 19:00 - 21:00 | 2 hours
- Directed by Tom Fassaert and presented by Marc Jacobs. ___ Doel, a Belgian village near the Dutch border, is disappearing quickly and d...
9:00
9:00
- 09.30 Trans: A New Encompassing Definition of Heritage (Transsources with Parasources/Resources) and Related Perspectives on Heritage Work and Policy in the 21st Century
- Participant Prof. Marc Jacobs (Vrije Universiteit Brussel) |
- 9:00 - 9:30 | 30 minutes Part of: Heritage and Liminality: Cross-Cultural and Inter Disciplinary Perspectives on Liminality and Cultural Heritage
- In this paper, a new, encompassing definition of heritage is proposed. Firstly the building blocks for the new, overarching definition of herita...
- Paper
Sessions in which Prof. Marc Jacobs attends
14:00
14:00
- Keynote: Renaming, Removal, Recontextualization of Heritage: Purging History, Claiming the Present, Imagining the Future? (What Change-Role for Heritage Professionals?) (James Count Early)
- Signup required Musée des Beaux-Ars de Montréal - Cummings Auditorium
- 14:00 - 15:30 | 1 hour 30 minutes
- "What does heritage change?" is a multifaceted question to which the answer(s) are in primary respects related to real-life negotiations among dif...
- Keynote with simultaneous translation / Conférence avec traduction simultanée

7:00
7:00
- Canal: Walking the Post-Industrial Lachine Canal
- Signup required Concordia, Engineering, Computer Science and Visual Arts Integrated Complex Building (EV) - EV Atrium (meeting point)
- 7:00 - 9:00 | 2 hours
- Canal: Walking the Post-Industrial Lachine Canal (COHDS, 2013 - bilingual) is an audio-walk and booklet ...
- Tour
15:30
15:30
- Keynote: Il n'est de patrimoine qu'au futur...| Only in the future will it be heritage... (Xavier Greffe)
- Signup required Concordia, John Molson School of Business Building (MB) - MB 1.210
- 15:30 - 17:00 | 1 hour 30 minutes
- Le patrimoine fait aujourd’hui l’objet d’attentions autant que d’agressions et de destructions. Cela peut s’expliquer par les difficultés de son id...
- Keynote with simultaneous translation / Conférence avec traduction simultanée

18:00
18:00
- Film Series Celebration : Sugar Shack Event
- Signup required Concordia, LB Building - LB 123
- 18:00 - 19:00 | 1 hour
- To celebrate our film series dedicated to heritage, sponsored by the Department of American Studies at the University of Maryland and the United St...
- Cocktail