The past decade has seen considerable public and scholarly debate, and public protest, over what, how, and where we memorialize difficult pasts, as well as how scholars and public history and museum professionals approach contested and traumatic histories.

This, the second of two international symposia co-hosted by QUB’s Centre for Public History, the US Holocaust Memorial Museum and the University of Virginia, brings together leading scholars and public history professionals from the US, Northern Ireland, and other parts of Europe to interrogate the challenges facing historians and museum professionals as they seek to address difficult or traumatic pasts (for details of the Belfast symposium see here). Like Belfast, Charlottesville, Va., is a city in which narratives of the past remain deeply divided and where the material culture of conflict is still very present, and is therefore an appropriate context in which to explore some of these issues.

We will explore such themes as how to account for the voices omitted from museum collections, how family histories can be used to return these voices, how difficult histories are presented in museums and public spaces, and what ethical considerations need to be taken into account when dealing with data and artifacts resulting from difficult histories.

After three days of closed workshop discussion, the public event will open with a film screening and drinks reception on the Sunday 16th March, followed by an all-day public symposium on Monday 17th March.