Tyler Lecture Series Symposium
Tyler Lecture Series Symposium on “After Charlottesville: Memorials, Monuments and Memory”
Friday, October 26, 2018
James Blair Hall, room 229
3-5pm
Virginia holds the unenviable distinction of being the only state in which the national controversy over public memorials to the Confederacy cost someone her life. The senseless murder of Heather Heyer in Charlottesville highlights the battles over memory and memorialization now raging in Virginia, the nation and throughout the world. As William & Mary prepares to commission a memorial to the enslaved people who labored at the institution, the Lyon Gardiner Tyler Department of History’s 2018 Symposium will take up the question of memory and memorialization past, present and future.
Our speakers will discuss their research and work in the field of public history, analyzing some of the historical silences in the memorial record. We also will contemplate and imagine new, honest and just ways of publicly memorializing those historically underrepresented in public memory, particularly Native Americans, African Americans and women.
Presenting are
Joseph Genetin-Pilawa, George Mason University: C. Joseph Genetin-Pilawa received his PhD at Michigan State University. He is the author of Crooked Paths to Allotment: The Fight over Federal Indian Policy after the Civil War (UNC Press, 2012), and the co-editor of Beyond Two Worlds: Critical Conversations on Language and Power in Native North America (SUNY Press, 2014). His articles have appeared in the Journal of Women’s History, Western Historical Quarterly, and The Capitol Dome as well as several edited collections. Professor Genetin-Pilawa’s current research examines the visual, symbolic, and lived Indigenous landscapes of Washington D.C., focusing especially upon the ways that Native visitors and residents claimed and reclaimed spaces in the city.
Ashley Atkins Spivey, director, Pamunkey Indian Tribal Resource Center: Pamunkey Tribal member Ashley Spivey is an anthropologist and acting Director of the Pamunkey Indian Tribal Resource Center located on the Pamunkey Indian Reservation. Ashley recently completed her Ph.D. in Anthropology at the College of William and Mary and her dissertation is entitled “Knowing the Land, Working the River and Digging for Clay: Pamunkey Indian Subsistence Practices and the Market Economy 1800-1900.” Combining archaeological evidence, archival sources, and oral testimony from Pamunkey Tribal members Ashley’s dissertation traces the history of Pamunkey responses to and engagement with an expanding capitalist economy in nineteenth century Tidewater Virginia. Ashley has received several awards for her dissertation research including the Society for American Archaeology’s Native American Graduate Archaeology Scholarship and the Southern Regional Education Board’s Dissertation Fellowship.
Robert C. Watson, Hampton University: Robert C. Watson is currently an Assistant Professor of History, Department of Political Science and History, Hampton University. He has served in several positions at Hampton University including Assistant to the Dean School of Liberal Arts and Education; Interim Chair of the Liberal Studies Program, and Assistant Director, Honors College. In 2013-2014, he was recipient of the E.L.Hamm Distinguished Teaching Award. Prior to coming to Hampton, he was the Assistant Director and Director of the Department of African American Interpretations at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. His last position at there was Senior Research Historian.
Cameron Patterson, director, Moton Museum and National Historic Landmark: Cameron Patterson is Managing Director of the Robert Russa Moton Museum in Farmville. The Moton Museum, formerly Moton High School is now a National Historic Landmark and museum, and a civil rights training ground, rooted in Prince Edward County's 1951-1964 fight for student freedom. Prior to becoming director of the museum, Patterson served as program coordinator for the Office of Disability Services at Longwood University.
