The Wellesley-Deerfield Symposium

As southern Civil War memorials have become a flashpoint for politics and protest, New England’s public monuments are also due for critical examination. The Wellesley-Deerfield symposium will explore the public commemorations of people, places, and events in New England’s past. Illustrated presentations by scholars from across the country will examine how these public acts of memory tell a particular story of New England and how, whether explicitly or implicitly, they conceal, devalue, or erase other histories. Ultimately, presenters will ask: How can we recast these monumental narratives without simultaneously sweeping aside uncomfortable histories of colonialism and discrimination?