“In Remembrance there is Life”: A Conversation about Memorialization amid a Global Pandemic.

This week US deaths from COVID-19 surpassed 80,000, far exceeding those from 9/11; gun violence in 2019; Hurricane Katrina and other cases of American atrocities. Such numbers call for a thoughtful conversation about how we can memorialize and honor the lives lost due to the novel coronavirus. We invite you to join us for a conversation with experts, practitioners, and those on the front line to inquire about how we might start to memorialize in non-traditional ways due to the current circumstances. This promises to be a productive, timely and engaging conversation.

Nicky Fox is professor of criminal justice at California State University, Sacramento. Her areas of expertise are mass atrocity, sexual violence, nationalism, collective memory and the aftermath of genocide.

Joel Christensen is Associate Professor in the Department of Classical Studies at Brandeis University. He has published broadly on language, myth and literature in the Homeric epics. His book The Many-Minded Man: The “Odyssey,” Psychology, and the Therapy of Epic comes out with Cornell in December.

Rabbi Jo Hirschmann, an ACPE Certified Educator, serves as director of spiritual care and education for Mount Sinai Beth Israel and Mount Sinai Downtown in New York City. She is a co-author of Maps and Meaning: Levitical Models for Contemporary Care.

Kathleen Gallivan, PhD, has been the Director of Spiritual Care at Brigham and Women’s Hospital for the past 17 years. In addition to her work at Brigham and Women’s, she is an adjunct psychotherapist at the Danielsen Institute, Boston, MA (a Licensed Mental Health Clinic focusing on spiritually integrated care).

Teri Kwant, ASLA, SEGD is Director of RSP Dreambox. Teri encourages clients to consider the emotional response that automatically happens within the built environment, helping them design desired experiences. She lectures frequently on experience design, environments and communications.