The Memory Project studies how memory is produced and reproduced and seeks to participate in and catalyze that process through support for educational initiatives and production of media and the arts, as well as through public history and commemorative events.
Opportunities
Apply for the 2024 Civil Rights Tour
The third Civil Rights Tour runs June 22-28. Paid for by the Memory Project and donors. UVA employees can apply here; teacher and the public can apply here.
Our work is forward-facing and applied in nature, bringing together theoretical investigation of the politics of memory with direct engagement with its real-world effects.
Photo credit: Sanjay Suchak
Arguments
Read Director Schmidt’s op-ed exploring the ways post-war Germans’ redress of trauma and memorialization were aligned with the aim of revitalizing democracy
ViewAt the center the work of the Memory Project is the question of how to address historical trauma
The Memory Project is rooted in projects centered on Charlottesville, which in the past years has become a pivotal space in defining and shaping broader debates about memory in the United States.
Film.
Memory Project artist-in-residence Micah Ariel Watson’s gospel-infused short films 40th & State and Barky’s
The Memory Project is part of the University of Virginia’s Karsh Institute of Democracy and is partially funded by the Mellon Foundation and the Ford Foundation. It promotes research, curriculum development, and public engagement to address issues of public memory, memory conflict, and memory politics in the wake of the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville in 2017.
These anti-racism protests show it's time for Britain to grapple with its difficult history
The Memory Project and the Democracy Initiative
City Orders Sims Statue Removed From Central Park
Toppled but Not Gone: U.N.C. Grapples Anew With the Fate of Silent Sam
Virginia House and Senate back local control of Confederate monuments
What to Do With a Man on Horseback
The Fight to Decolonize the Museum
Schmidt Op-Ed on Statue Removals
Professor Jalane Schmidt published an op-ed in the Richmond Times-Dispatch on the ethics and issues raised after confederate monuments are removed. (Photo credit: Sanjay Suchak/UVA)
Schmidt quoted in NYTimes
Memory Project director Schmidt is quoted in The New York Times' article about the connections between the 2017 "Summer of Hate" in Charlottesville and the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. Read the story here.