Monumental issues

Why do some monuments provoke such powerful emotions while others are forgettable? "Monumental Issues: Thinking about Monuments in Public Spaces" is a presentation by Dr. Jeffrey H. Jackson with additional material by Dr. Ellen K. Daugherty. It provides a broader context for debates about historical monuments and the role these markers play in local communities today. Looking at monuments as both public history and public art helps us understand how we make sense of our past and what role we want our past to play in our common future.

Jackson is the J.J. McComb Professor of History at Rhodes College in Memphis; Daugherty is Professor of Art History at Memphis College of Art. The program was sponsored by Humanities Tennessee.

Here are links to some of the works mentioned in the recording. (If you listen in the browser, right-click and open in a new tab as these monuments are mentioned, so that you can keep listening.)

• Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe
• The Painted Monument to the Soviet Army in Bulgaria
• Free Speech Monument
• Piazza del Campidoglio with replica of equestrian Marcus Aurelius statue
• Monument Avenue with Robert E. Lee equestrian statue
• The Four Moors
• General Sherman statue
• Robert Gould Shaw and the 54th Regiment
• Emancipation Memorial and views of Lincoln Park with Bethune statue
• Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. figural memorial in Washington, D.C. and abstract memorial in Memphis
• "Samey" statues in Lafeyette Park
• Mass-produced Confederate/Union soldiers, The Hiker, Spirit of the American Doughboy
• Reflecting Absence
• Korean War monument
• Spiral Jetty
• Marvelous Sugar Baby
• Wheatfield: A Confrontation
• Uncle Jack statue
• Trafalgar Square Fourth Plinth Hahn/Cock and Nelson's Ship in a Bottle
• Abraham Lincoln: War Veteran Projection