Monuments and Memorials.
Choose a specific monument, memorial, or artistic tribute which alludes to a historical event or person, and then write an analysis of the struggle for power that the monument represents.
In addition to analyzing the statuary itself, and the rhetorical appeals that it makes to viewers, the paper should include a discussion of the problem, or struggle, that is embedded in the statue’s existence. What is being contested here? Who is empowered by it, and who is disempowered? What story is it telling us about history?
Your choices include but are not limited to the following:
- Specific Confederate Statuary in the US
- Mt. Rushmore
- Comfort Women Statue in Chinatown
- Statuary of Junipero Serra
- Crazy Horse
You can also choose to write about some other commemorative statue, holiday, or symbol, for example, celebrating Columbus Day, the renaming of a building, street, or school, or the commemoration/lack of commemoration, of a slave site or site of an atrocity.