Information Session: Certificate in Museums, Memory,and Power

Join the Department of African and African American Studies (DAAAS) and the Bing Overseas Studies Program (BING) for an information session on the new certificate in Museums, Memory, and Power.

Travel with us from Stanford to Cape Town and Oxford to explore how museums, archives, monuments, and communities shape what we remember about the past. 

At Stanford, we investigate precolonial histories, colonial collecting, archival silences, and debates over restitution and repatriation. In Cape Town, we explore a landscape marked by colonialism, apartheid, forced displacement, and struggles over memory. In Oxford, we examine European collections built from around the world and changing debates over who should control, interpret, and care for them.Along the way, you’ll learn to research the history of objects and collections, conduct oral histories, work with archives, investigate provenance, and experiment with participatory curation. 

During the Stanford quarter, you’ll also learn to use AI tools to investigate historical materials. Through hands-on, closely supervised research projects, you’ll learn how to assess evidence, navigate competing claims, and communicate complex stories.These skills prepare students for further study and careers in museums and heritage, as well as in related fields such as education, journalism, law, public policy, government, and research. At the heart of the program is a deceptively simple question: whose story gets told? The past is not simply something we inherit. It is collected, classified, displayed, contested, and remembered. What we choose to preserve - and what gets left out - shapes how societies understand themselves.

Select the track that fits your academic goals — a focused two-quarter global experience or an immersive three-quarter certificate program — and join a global community of scholars dedicated to exploring how memory shapes our world.

The certificate program is open to students in any major starting in fall 2027. Places are limited because of the program’s intensive, research-based format.

Date: Thursday October 22

Time: 12-1pm

Location: Building 80 (Main Quad), Room 114

Lunch will be provided.

RSVP

See you there,

DAAAS & BOSP Team