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Conversations on the Commons: Acknowledging Loss and Archiving Experience in the Wake of Catholic Church Closures
July 23, 2021 @ 10:00 am - 11:30 am
Brainstorm Session: Acknowledging Loss and Archiving Experience in the Wake of Catholic Church Closures
July 23, 2021, 10:00 a.m. – 11:30 a.m. *new time!*
Join historian Margo Shea in a reflective conversation about how historical societies, museums and other history organizations can participate productively in addressing and archiving a history happening in our midst — the closure of Catholic churches across the Commonwealth. For over 150 years, churches have served as important neighborhood institutions, archives of ethnic, immigrant histories, reflections of changing neighborhoods, town and cities and spaces for gatherings of all kinds. They are multi-generational touchstones for many families, sites of memory rich with history. The grief Catholics and former Catholics are experiencing at the demolition of churches or their sale and renovation into condos, offices, etc. is complicated by the closures’ links to the clergy sexual abuse crisis. We will explore the layers of history in play and consider how history organizations can participate and take the lead in processes that respond to church closures.
Registration is free. REGISTER HERE.
This Conversation will be livestreamed. We will do our best to monitor your questions and comments during the livestream. A recording will be publicly available in the Conversations on the Commons Archive.
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- Margo Shea is Associate Professor of History at Salem State University, where she teaches public history, Irish history and world history, oversees a public history certificate program and supervises internships for History majors. She is the author of Derry City: Memory and Political Struggle in Northern Ireland and several articles and chapters in anthologies on heritage, memory and collaborative practice. Her expertise lies in planning, implementing, and evaluating crowdsourced projects and in decoding thoughts, feelings, opinions, hopes and fears of historical actors who left few written and archived records behind. At the heart of her work is a commitment to sharing the tools of public history in ways that center listening in our explorations of the past and do not ignore the larger structures around which memory and identity take and change shape.
Questions? Be in touch with Caroline Littlewood: commons@masshistoryalliance.org
Conversations on the Commons
Where people from Massachusetts history organizations get to vent, empathize, laugh, complain, think, collaborate, brainstorm, plan, and in general be up to no good.