What makes an old building, artifact, or custom "historic"? Which historic things are worth preserving? This course explores the aesthetic, political, social, and environmental dimensions of heritage culture. Moving from local conservation efforts to comparative frameworks of national and global heritage, we will examine the management of built and natural environments as it pertains to questions of narrative, values, standards of beauty, and justice. From Caltech's own campus to the Watts Towers and the National Park Service, to UNESCO and the architectural legacies of the Atlantic slave trade, our class will grapple with the theories, practices, and debates of heritage conservation as they determine what gets preserved and which stories get told. Readings/viewings will be supplemented with field trips to heritage sites in Pasadena and Los Angeles.