Museums and memorials have long functioned as markers of a society’s past, most often as sites of celebration and honor. But just as efforts to decolonize the museum are calling for an end to imperial traditions that obscure the exploitation of people, objects, and resources, so too are tragedies, genocide, and ongoing trauma re-shaping curatorial agendas. The field of “public memory” has arisen to explain and activate the space between formal histories and individual memories--often with the goal of using memorials to re-shape the presence of the past to focus on restorative justice through collective memories and actions. Alongside have been anti-monumental and counter-memorial practices by artists that have resisted the ideological imperatives of the state often embedded in monuments. We will work through issues that have roused considerable debate in recent years, such as slavery, mass incarceration, immigration, inequality, and climate devastation. The class will work directly with organizations engaged in these issues.