Monuments are often ignored; what they commemorate tends to be forgotten a generation or two after their construction. Sometimes, though, their meanings become matters of urgent debate. This webinar will begin with an overview of how monumentalization has manifested across different societies, asking: what do monuments do, and why do we make them? In the … Continued
As a young girl visiting Vicksburg, Mississippi, Julia Nguyen encountered a Civil War statue. It altered not only the way she understands history, but the way she thinks about that very concept. Transcript I’m Julia Nguyen and my Humanities Moment, or at least this one because my life has been full of Humanities Moments, as … Continued
“There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.” – Martin Luther King, Jr. The idea of “contested territories”, which we have wrestled with this week, can apply to how the war is remembered and … Continued
Three years ago my schoolfriend of university took me to see the Canadian monument for the fallen soldiers of the First World War at Vimy in France. I especially remember the ride to Vimy. As out of nothing there was this huge monument on a hill. The white stones and the sunlight made me eager … Continued
After the ancient Roman Empire embraced Christianity, the empire’s culture and politics were significantly transformed. In this podcast, Dennis Trout shares insights from his interdisciplinary study of poetic inscriptions found throughout ancient Rome. He considers the way these epigrams were embedded in the city's architecture and displayed to an empire in transition, and he suggests they go beyond considerations of religion, literature, and culture to illuminate the ways that visual and textual cues were used to send messages to a diverse audience in the ancient world.