Recent calls across the world for removing monuments to White supremacy have brought widespread attention to the power of images and the role of heritage in society. A more careful examination of heritage’s itineraries and pragmatics—its practical effects—is thus warranted. This paper interrogates the pragmatics of heritage in two ways. First, what are the discourses and rhetorics of heritage—how is heritage invoked and talked about, like a sign of history, in making statements about the world? Second, what does heritage do, as a sign in history, when it is invoked, encountered, and circulated? What does heritage activate, and what are the practical effects of its itineraries? Drawing on the examples of the return of the Euphronios krater to Italy and the removal of Confederate and racist monuments in the US and elsewhere, I argue that while operating in these two modes—as signs of and in history—heritage’s greatest potential for transformational change is when it ceases acting as a rhetorical device and instead becomes itself the center of experiential social action.

世界各地最近呼吁拆除白人至高无上的纪念碑的呼吁引起了人们对图像力量和遗产在社会中的作用的广泛关注。因此，必须对遗产的行程和语用进行更仔细的检查，以检查其实际效果。本文以两种方式审视遗产的实用性。首先，什么是话语和修辞学的遗产，遗产如何调用谈起，像征的历史，使这个世界语句？二，什么是遗产做，作为一个标志中历史，何时调用，遇到和传播？遗产激活了什么，其行程的实际影响是什么？吸取了欧弗洛尼奥斯krater意大利和美国的清除同盟和种族主义古迹和其他地方返回的例子，我认为，虽然这两种操作模式，作为标志的，并在历史底蕴上最伟大的转型变革的潜力是当它不再充当修辞手法而变成本身成为体验性社会行动的中心时。