Thuy Vo Dang, Ph.D. (she/her)
The concept of “community” has become exceedingly commonplace and a catchall term for multiple, complex, and sometimes competing claims to identity, social relationships, and group boundaries. This seminar examines frameworks of placemaking, memory work, and ethics of care for communities whose histories and cultural heritage are threatened by systemic forms of violence and erasure. Emphasizing the intersection of theory and practice in interrogations of the ideations of community, we will draw from scholarship across archival studies, public history, digital humanities, the social sciences and cultural studies. The seminar invites challenges and critiques of taken-for-granted deployments of community in contemporary society in order to productively move towards more just and ethical practices of community-building and public engagement.