The inaugural event for the newly established University of Massachusetts (UMass) Amherst Center for Heritage & Society, entitled “Heritage in Conflict and Consensus: New Approaches to the Social, Political, and Religious Impact of Public Heritage in the 21st Century,” was held in November 2009 at three locations in the northeastern United States. Workshop attendees participated in several organized sessions, day trips, informal discussions, and five plenary sessions with accompanying working sessions focused on four themes in international heritage practice: community; faith; diaspora; and burial, ancestors, and human Remains. The event was co-organized by two members of the UMass Amherst Center for Heritage & Society, Director Elizabeth Chilton and Coordinator of Projects and Policy Initiatives Neil Silberman, whose main goal was to establish a permanent working group of international representatives engaging with issues of heritage in conflict charged with setting research and policy agendas for the field.