3.0

credits

Average Course Rating

Traditionally defined as placeholders of memory, monuments and memorials supposedly help us remember and reflect. But who, what and how do they remember? Who decides how and where they are built? This course poses these and other questions about the politics of public commemoration amid the rich monumental landscape of the nation’s capital. Site visits allow students to experience monuments as living, built ideas and ideals, and to participate in the conversation among memorials. For example, how does the Vietnam Veterans Memorial—which remains the most original and poignant built expression of remembrance—dialogue with the nearby Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial? And how is Lincoln’s legacy recorded differently in the contested Emancipation Memorial in Lincoln Park? Onsite engagement with DC monuments will be paired with discussing scholarly works on the theory and history of monuments and reflecting on talks by members of the National Capital Memorial Advisory Commission, the National Park Service, and the American Battle Monuments Commission. This integrative learning approach invites students to grapple with the complex and ever-evolving process of making and maintaining public memory while placing recent controversies in a broader historical perspective.