Session 4 - Humanities Urbanism Design Initiative

RACE, URBAN LAND AND OCCUPATION IN PUBLIC MEMORY

FEBRUARY 28, 2025
3:45PM-5:15PM
VAN PELT LIBRARY
KISLAK CENTER

This panel will examine the politics of ownership, marginalized land occupation, and conflicts over urban space, focusing particularly on the United States. Panelists will explore the ways in which racialized narratives of lawlessness and violence have distorted our public memory and our urban landscapes. They will also discuss how more inclusive practices of public memory and public policy approaches to property conflict and occupation informed by Critical Black Urbanism can make space for justice in the city.

panel keywords: spatializing memory, public memory, expanding narratives, multiple truths, collective history, collective action, shared history, homelessness

PANELIST TOPICS

Spatializing Memory: Lessons we’re learning through the Public Memory and Memorials Lab, Jha D Amazi

Memorials and monuments—memory and history in built form—carry a responsibility to convey complex histories and create spaces for truth-telling. Jha D Amazi will reflect on how spatializing memory can foster healing and inspire collective action for future generations, illustrating how we can reimagine the public realm to celebrate the multitudes of those who have shaped our society, expanding our understanding of collective history.

keywords: spatializing memory, public memory, expanding narratives, multiple truths, collective history, collective action, shared history

The Outdoors, Marques Vestal

The outdoors is the real terror of life, writes Toni Morrison, who defined the outdoors as “no place to go.” Addressing the current “crisis” of homelessness, this presentation reveals the history of how a mass eviction in 1907 created the modern condition of the outdoors in Los Angeles.

keywords: homelessness

title incoming, Randall Mason