Museums and Politics
Course Title: Museums and Monuments
Day & Time: Tuesdays, 2:00pm - 5:00pm
The museums and monuments of Washington DC serve as testaments to the triumphs, tragedies and contradictions inherent in the term “democracy.” This class will encourage students to see interconnectivity involved in the construction of public memory—particularly in the nation’s capital. What or who is included? What and who are excluded? And why? What are the ethical obligations inherent in the construction of public memorials? This is an experiential learning course that will introduce students to the major monuments, government buildings, and sites of general interest in national history and politics. Smithsonian museum curators and professors versed in Washington DC history will give 1-2 guest lectures during the course. Outings include visits to Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington, the Native American Museum, the Lincoln memorial, the Korean War memorial, the Holocaust museum, and the National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Jessica Millward
Jessica Milward is the Associate Director of the Center for Liberation, Anti-Racism and Belonging (C-LAB) at UC Irvine. An Associate Professor in the Department of History and Core Faculty member of African American Studies, Millward is particularly interested in the intersections of slavery, freedom, power and liberation. Dr. Millward's first book, Finding Charity’s Folk: Enslaved and Free Black women in Maryland was published as part of the Race in the Atlantic World series, Athens: University of Georgia Press (2015). An award-winning scholar, she has published in the Journal of African American History, the Journal of Women’s History, Frontiers, Nommo, Souls and the Women’s History Review as well as Op-eds in Chronicle of Higher Education, The Feministwire.com and The Conversation.com. With Aisha Finch and Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, Millward co-edited a special issue of Palimpsest on “Black Feminist Theory and the Politics of Care.” Millward is also co-editor with Kacey Calahane and Max Speare, Historians on Housewives: Fashion, Power, and Historical Memory on Bravo Reality Television Historians on Housewives: Fashion, Power, and Historical Memory on Bravo Reality Television (UNC Press, 2025).
Dr. Millward is currently working on two solo authored book length projects. The first discusses African American women's experiences with sexual assault and intimate partner violence from Reconstruction to the Jazz Age. The second books look at historical memory, Ghana, and the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
