HIST 373 - Monuments and Memory in U.S. History

In recent U.S. history, monuments have sparked some of the most contentious debates over the American past. This course considers contestation over monuments both at the time they were erected and in subsequent historical eras. We will analyze monuments as works of art, sites of public memory, and historical artifacts whose meanings shift over time. Across different case studies, we will consider the racial politics of memory in the United States as manifested through monumental culture and resistance to it. We will give extended attention to disparate memories related to the Civil War, including monuments to the Confederacy and emancipation. Other significant case studies will include the monumental landscape of the National Mall in Washington, D.C., and monuments commemorating the expansion of U.S. settler empire (“pioneer” monuments).

Unit(s): 1
Group Distribution Requirement(s): Distribution Group II
Prerequisite(s): Sophomore standing
Instructional Method: Conference
Grading Mode: Letter grading (A-F)
Group Distribution Learning Outcome(s):

Evaluate data and/or sources.
Analyze institutions, formations, languages, structures, or processes, whether social, political, religious, economic, cultural, intellectual or other.
Think in sophisticated ways about causation, social and/or historical change, human cognition, or the relationship between individuals and society, or engage with social, political, religious or economic theory in other areas.