Profs and Pints Online presents: “Monumental Controversies” with Fred Bohrer, professor of art and archaeology at Hood College, art historian, and creator of the website Monumental Anxiety: An Anti-Guide to the Monuments of Washington, D.C. [which can be found online at kulturalkapital.com].

Even more than most cities, Washington, D.C. is filled with monuments and commemorative spaces, which usually serve as a sort of backdrop to living. In the past few years, though, many public monuments in Washington and across the country have faced new scrutiny, criticism and even direct attack. Indeed, in just the past few weeks, the new battle over monuments has grown even more fierce, heated and violent. What is really at stake? How and why do monuments today have the power to inspire such vehement passions among both defenders and detractors? And just why are there so many monuments in the first place?

Most prominent is the current battle over Confederate monuments, which can be found in every corner of the nation. In fact, even Washington has a public, outdoor monument to a confederate general, and KKK sympathizer, in disguise as a poet and philosopher. But many other controversies also play out around monuments. As you will see, cities around the globe also have monuments that bring up, sometimes by their attempts at covering up, questions of sexual orientation, disability, ideology, social class and much more.

This talk is for anyone who has wondered about the prominent place of monuments in cities and towns, the nature of historical memory or how things such as race, gender, sexuality, and cultural identity are inscribed in America’s public landscape. While it will address some current, burning questions around monuments, it will also give you a larger historical perspective on the varieties of monuments and their development, as well as fundamental tools for understanding and analyzing them. We will look in detail at many objects both famous and obscure, from throughout the US and around the world.

Fred Bohrer has for more than two decades written books and articles examining how tangible objects—paintings, photographs, sculptures, ancient artifacts, museum displays and more—both represent and obscure public histories. You’ll walk out of his talk a more informed citizen about a fundamental issue that will certainly not go away.

Profs & Pints Online: Monumental Controversies