What does it mean when people in the present call for a 'reckoning' with history? What is behind the calls for erecting or tearing down monuments to the past? Academic historians have their own interpretations and arguments about the past and its meaning. But politicians, teachers, activists, influencers, and everyday folks also contest what we talk about when we research, write, and teach history—from the centrality of enslavement and colonialism in the making of America to how systemic inequality is built and structured over time to the very question of whose voice, and life, matters. This seminar will engage the substance of these contested histories and the way people have conscripted these histories to their own social and political concerns.
