Liz Ševčenko

Liz Ševčenko

Booth Family Rome Prize
February 19–July 23, 2018
Profession
Director, Humanities Action Lab, New School and Rutgers University, Newark
Project title
Confronting Denial: Preservation for a Post-Truth Era
Project description

I plan to write a piece that provides an integrated approach to heritage and human rights. It will offer theoretical frameworks and practical resources for the fast-growing number of people from transitional justice, community development, and other fields who, whether they identify as historic preservationists or not, are saving places to build lasting cultures of human rights. The rise of a US movement likened to fascism makes this a critical moment to explore consequences of forgetting, and remembering, fascist sites. Italy is an essential case study: the country is now breaking decades of silence to confront its past, inspiring deep controversy. The Museo della Shoah in Rome is struggling to open at Mussolini’s Villa Torloni. A Museum of Fascism is proposed in the Casa del Fascio e dell’Ospitalità in Mussolini’s home town of Predappio. The book will compare this with the US’s refusal to officially reckon with sites of recent abuses at Guantanamo or historic abuses of slavery and mass incarceration.