EIHS Workshop: Disinheriting the Past, Democratizing the Present: Politics, Ethics, and the Art of Remembering

Acts of public memorialization and commemoration are modes of historical narrativization that inform one’s sense of belonging to a political community. As current events from around the world remind us, questions about heritage, historical memory, and whom we choose to commemorate remain sites of open contestation. Depending on the discourse in which acts of remembrance are embedded, one person’s hero can be another’s villain, one person’s visionary another’s tyrant, one person’s revolutionary another’s terrorist. This EIHS graduate student workshop explores the relationship between history, heritage, and the ways in which a commitment to democratic values urge us to reconsider and re-curate public celebrations of the past. We consider the politics of heritage-making from a wide range of temporal and geographical settings.

Panelists:

• Christopher Blackmore (PhD Student, History, University of Michigan)
• Ayleen Paola Correa (PhD Student, Anthropology and History, University of Michigan)
• Kristin Foringer (PhD Student, Sociology, University of Michigan)
• Allison Grenda (PhD Student, History of Art, University of Michigan)
• David Tamayo, moderator (Assistant Professor, History, University of Michigan)


This event presented by the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies. It is made possible in part by a generous contribution from Kenneth and Frances Aftel Eisenberg.