The HEBE network, led by Dr Sophie Cooper (QUB) with Dr Maja Hultman (University of Gothenburg), Dr Niamh NicGhabhann Coleman (University of Limerick), Dr Joseph Curran (Maynooth University), and Dr Trisha Kessler (Woolf Institute) have been awarded funding from the Royal Irish Academy 2024 Commemorations Bursary Scheme. 

The HEBE network will deliver a series of workshops on the theme of ‘Feeling Sites of Commemoration’, exploring the history of emotions in relation to commemorative spaces. These will be held in Belfast and Dublin in March and May 2025. 

Commemorative spaces are deeply affective sites in our landscapes, and this project aims to foreground the issue of emotion as central to how we understand interaction with commemoration and local sites of memory. This project is innovative and fills an important gap in the scholarship on commemoration, connecting academic research and theory with the lived experience of site managers, and the practice of heritage and planning professionals. 

HEBE is committed to considering the ways that the history of emotions can help us to better understand the built environment. It aims to facilitate inclusive cross-sectoral discussions between and across discipline and practice.