How do histories of violence shape the present? How do traumatic memories shape the way we see the world today? How do certain places and spaces come to signify past events and become sites of political conflict in the present? This class will address histories of state and intercommunal violence, how these histories are remembered and politicized today, and how they are reflected and negotiated through the material world. The course will begin with an investigation of Turkey as a case study through which to approach questions of memory, place, and histories of state violence against minority groups. We will examine in depth the case of the violent transformation of the Ottoman Empire into the contemporary Republic of Turkey with a focus on the 1915 Genocide of Ottoman Armenians and the ongoing war between the Turkish state and the Kurdish minority, in the context of a long history of state violence against minority communities. Subsequently, we will examine other global contexts that exemplify these themes of how violent pasts and the spaces and objects associated with them become sites of political contestation in the present. Throughout the course students will engage with various and competing narratives of histories of violence, including state denial, memories of survivors, and attempts to resurrect the memories of repressed events. Students will learn about methodologies of oral history and ethnographic analysis, and engage with theoretical debate relating to memory, state violence, materiality, and space and place.