History 1903: How Societies Remember (and Forget)

Professor Kirsten Weld. As the adage goes, “All wars are fought twice: the first time on the battlefield, the second time in memory.” This seminar interrogates the relationship between history and memory by analyzing how modern societies have chosen to remember – and to forget – their histories of war, conquest, violence, and dispossession. We examine cases from across the Americas and diverse strategies of memorialization and redress, including museums, monuments, reparations, and exhumations, to understand how contested pasts generate both political challenges and political possibilities.