New York City Memory, Monuments, & the Presence of the Past

Session Submission Type: Invited Session (90 minute)

Description

New York City has a rich and multifarious mnemonic landscape. One can feel the presence of the past across the city’s diverse array of neighborhoods and in various places and spaces of significance to different communities. This mnemonic landscape includes a wide variety of monuments, commemorative sites, historical markers, and other places that carry social memories and keep that past alive for residents and tourists alike. Some evoke controversial, difficult, or traumatic episodes and situations. Others focus our attention on important times and events and connect them to our present lives. And still other places, in their ongoing transformations, contain traces of past times now fading or forgotten. This panel includes scholars working in different traditions who explore the mnemonic significance of New York City. While they focus on different topics and cases, they come together on this panel around their shared interest in the social memories of New York City.

Sub Unit

• Regional Spotlight Session

Presider

• Thomas DeGloma, CUNY-Hunter College

Individual Presentations

• In the Open, In the Shadows: Black Lesbians, Shared Memories, and Community-Building in Mid-Twentieth Century New York - Mignon R. Moore, Barnard College

• On September 11, 2026: Reflections on a Reverberating Past - Christina Simko, Williams College

• Mnemonic Traces: Race and Colonialism in NYC’s Commemorative Landscape - Amy Sodaro, CUNY-Borough of Manhattan Community College

• Erasing the Past: Race, Space, and Power in Gentrifying Brooklyn - Amanda Boston, University of Pittsburgh

Session Organizer

• Thomas DeGloma, CUNY-Hunter College