Heroes & Holidays / Momuments & Memory

Catalog description

The calendar revolves around holidays that commemorate our shared history - Columbus Day, Veterans Day, Thanksgiving, etc. On those holidays we might visit monuments to great causes and fallen heroes. But do we all share the same historical memory? Our holidays and our monuments are themselves battlegrounds for differing visions of our past and our identity. This course will explore the historical memory through public holidays and monuments, and the conflicts that surround them. We will explore such loaded questions as: What history is memorialized and why? How do we remember our past(s)? Can we find a consensus? Students will work together to discern different perspectives on controversial topics and share them through discussion, presentation, debate, and writing.