“There is nothing in the world as invisible as a monument,” writer Robert Musil once said.
Yet recent events have brought them into high relief, both as commemorative infrastructure and as sites of political struggle. This course offers a primer on the history of monuments (and memorials) in the United States and engages with their recent history.
The course explores the formal strategies, habits of placement, commemorative value, and the social and political meaning of these often maligned, but also revered, interventions in the built environment.
Students explore issues of iconoclasm, appropriation, race, and gender; confront recent controversies; and work together to propose their own memorial or counter-memorial to an issue or event.
This class meets the L&S breadth requirements for Arts & Literature and Historical Studies.