American Monuments: The Politics of Historical Memory (SNF Paideia Program Course)

Catalog description

The 2020 protests about monuments in Philadelphia and across the nation exposed this truth: Arguments over history are political arguments about the future. The subsequent countermovement to restore monuments, memorials, statues, and place-names, as well as “classical” and “traditional” architecture, has further politicized the landscape of memory. In this place-based, Philadelphia-centric course (including campus walking tours and local field trips), we will examine how the built environment communicates ideas about—and creates connections to—the past. These ideas and these landscapes can be inclusive or exclusive, or both. The goal of this course is to inspire greater dialogue about national history and public space, two kinds of shared projects in a democracy. Students will learn about the making of the US memorial landscape in the long nineteenth century, its remaking in the twentieth century, and its possible futures now in the (re)making. The course will also put Philadelphia and the US in global context, for the politics of historical memory exist everywhere there are monuments.