AFRAMER 249A Charles Warren Center Seminar: Commemorative Acts

Taught by Tiya Miles and Robin Bernstein

This Charles Warren Center Seminar combines a year-long graduate course with a cohort of visiting Faculty Fellows. In sustained conversation with the Faculty Fellows, graduate students will produce original research (ideally, a dissertation chapter or publishable article) relating to the theme of "commemorative acts." We define commemorations as events, rituals, processes, material objects, and built environments through which a group endeavors to remember, and often honor, people, happenings, or values of the past. Commemorations will abound in 2026 as the United States recognizes the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and the beginning of the American Revolution. This timing provides a rich occasion and context for examining commemoration as a national endeavor. Who is remembering what, and how? What is being erased, and why? What are the stakes of commemoration in the present?