PUBLICK OCCURRENCES — March 25, 2021

16th Mass History Conference announcement – preview the program!

The 16th Annual Massachusetts History Conference is only a few months away and the conference committee has been working hard to put together a program that reflects this year’s theme of history as a community activity. The conference is scheduled as a multi-day event that will feature presentations and panels, skills-sharing classes, networking opportunities, and a plenary by Diana Carolina Sierra Becerra.

Selected offerings include:

  • Community-driven exhibit planning
  • Supporting and sustaining volunteers: from archival projects to institutional programming
  • Finding Community through History
  • Curating Marginalized Heritage
  • Engaging community, building digital collections: An Introduction to RoPA (the Roadmap for Participatory Archiving)
  • Unceasing Access: Research and Collection Development During Covid-19
  • Museum Education: How to Start (If you organization is small), How to Grow (If your program already exists), and Lessons Learned

The virtual conference platform will also provide space for people to discuss teaching with history, working with history, and preserving history and will virtualize the Commons tabling area that has been a fixture at past conferences. 

Meet our Keynote Speaker, Diana Carolina Sierra Becerra!

“Our team, February 2019” — L to R front row: Monique Nguyen (Executive Director of the Matahari Women Workers Center), Premilla Nadasen (Professor of History at Barnard College; project advisor), Riya Ortiz (organizer with the Damayan Migrant Workers Association), Jennifer Guglielmo, Diana Sierra Becerra; L to R back row: Angela Nhien (friend of the project), Andrew Fletcher (friend of the project), Michelle Joffroy. Courtesy of Michelle Joffroy, Jennifer Guglielmo, and DIana Sierra Becerra. Putting History in Domestic Workers’ Hands: A Community-Based Digital Humanities Project (https://www.radicalhistoryreview.org/abusablepast/putting-history-in-domestic-workers-hands-a-community-based-digital-humanities-project/)

Dr. Becerra is a public historian who specializes in shared history and collective memory. Dr. Becerra’s ongoing project is “Putting History in Domestic Workers’ Hands,” in collaboration with Smith College and the National Domestic Workers Alliance (NDWA). Learn more by checking out the conference keynote announcement. 

So save the date and plan to join us on June 7th to network, listen, and learn with 200 colleagues from all across Massachusetts. Registration will open April 15th.

The 2021 Massachusetts History Conference is hosted by the Massachusetts History Alliance. Our Premier Conference Partner is Mass Humanities and Conference Partner is The Massachusetts State Historical Records Advisory Board.