INTRODUCTION

From Tianamenn Square in Beijing to the Maison des Esclaves on Goreé Island in Senegal, sights of social confrontation, spaces of violence, provide a framework for the construction of history, the places of memory. The urban waterfront, the rural battlefield, the domestic interior are alls spaces of memory and sights of contestation. Both historians and sociologists have examined the ways in which space and memory inform the construction of social and historical narratives. How do spaces of violence function as spaces of memory? How does the spatial structure crystallize events in memory, and further, how can spatial re-structuring change the way violent events are memorialized?

The Seventh Annual Sociology and Committee on Historical Studies Conference at the New School invites you to participate in the on-going discussion about relation between sites of violence and memory.