Art can be addressed, not just to individuals, but to groups. Art can even be part of how groups think to themselves – how they keep a grip on their values over time. I focus on monuments as a case study. Monuments, I claim, can function as a commitment to a group value, for the sake of long-term action guidance. Art can function here where charters and mission statements cannot, precisely because of art’s powers to capture subtlety and emotion. In (...) particular, art can serve as the vessel for group emotions, by making emotional content sufficiently public so as to be the object of a group commitment. Art enables groups to guide themselves with values too subtle to be codified. (shrink)

While much has been said about what ought to be done about the statues and monuments of racist, colonial, and oppressive figures, a significantly undertheorised aspect of the debate is the aesthetics of commemorations. I believe that this philosophical oversight is rather unfortunate. I contend that taking the aesthetic value of commemorations seriously can help us a) better understand how and the extent to which objectionable commemorations are objectionable, b) properly formulate responses to aesthetic defences of objectionable commemorations, and c) (...) help us explore aesthetic solutions—for example, artistic interventions as counterspeech—to objectionable commemorations. Here, I propose that the aesthetic value of objectionable commemorations can amplify the force of the objectionable messages conveyed, and the moral disvalue of objectionable commemorations can hinder our appreciation of their aesthetic value. These two considerations shall help us answer the practical question of what to do about objectionable commemorations of apparently good aesthetic value. Both, I shall argue, give us further reason to remove, replace, recontextualise, or even vandalise objectionable commemorations. Sometimes we need to save the art from its own immorality to best respect its aesthetic value. (shrink)

Monument or memorial? Defeat or withdrawal? The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC pays tribute to more than 58,000 Americans who died fighting an unpopular war. Yet today the ‘Wall’, as it is known to most Americans, is the most visited site managed by the US National Park Service. Weekend visitors will happen upon an almost festive place as thousands of people pass by looking at the names – what do they think, imagine? This chapter discusses not only the story (...) and controversy behind the building of the ‘Wall’, but also how it reflects the collective memory of a society and its values, and how these are constructed. (shrink)

This is a short reply to Dan Demetriou's "Ashes of Our Fathers: Racist Monuments and the Tribal Right." Both are included in Oxford University Press's Ethics, Left and Right: The Moral Issues That Divide Us.

Monuments and statues are forms of commemoration. They typically pay tribute to people or events and aim to serve as a permanent marker, a link between present and past generations, committing them to memory and assigning them with importance and meaning. While commemorations can be beneficial in terms of recognising a legacy of the past and helping foster relationships between opposing groups, they can also be divisive and painful, failing to acknowledge other dimensions of historical fact and further hardening the (...) boundaries between groups in conflict. Essentially, what we choose to commemorate reflects what we as a society actually value. This paper focuses on the unsettled fates of the Captain Cook statue that stands with prominence in Hyde Park, Warrane, and other colonial monuments in Australia. It also discusses the emotionality surrounding such commemorations. We question whether Cook’s actual achievements constitute the notoriety that has been bestowed upon him. A range of commentators have put forward ideas around what to do about the Cook statue which we discuss while also considering what the future might look like if the truth of colonial history is known and open conversations can be had. (shrink)

The Monumental is an interdisciplinary collection of original, cutting-edge contributions by international researchers pursuing the epistemology and ontology of monuments over time and geography. The contributors are specialists in geography, architectural theory and history, prehistoric, Greek and Roman archaeology, modern art, Byzantine studies, landscape theory and heritage reception. Against the global climate of flux and uncertainty in the present turbulent world, the durability of monuments as "urban permanences" emerges as one of the few remaining spatial and mental anchorages. As such (...) it is needed, maintained, enhanced, imitated, landscaped and even invented. In particular, the monumental as a spatial and aesthetic phenomenon of perpetual importance has recently acquired major new meanings. It now emerges as a key political, spatial, aesthetic, symbolic, architectural and archaeological manifestation or entity, open to constantly new, even contradictory forms and expressions. This collection addresses the urgent need for relevant research. It breaks new ground by posing fresh questions on the ontology, temporality, purpose, politics, scale, place, contestations and aesthetics of and around the monumental, from prehistoric time to the present, as well as in both Eastern and Western geographies. Monuments are explored as bearers of the urban majestic, extraordinary and sublime. The Monumental poses questions about changing perceptions, the evocative power of representation, identity construction, ideology and symbolism, the vital necessity for a communicative and active public space around monuments, imitation processes across geographical space-time, as well as the powers that construct, deconstruct or identify the monumental but also the anti-monumental as such. Geographies of reference are the European space, the United States and Asia. Wide-ranging theorizations alternate with in-depth analyses of paradigmatic cases. Conventional as well as alternative forms of the monumental in the present shifting world are also pursued. The Monumental is of great value and interest to scholars, students and professionals in the fields of architectural theory, history and design, archaeology, art theory and history, Byzantine studies, restoration, urban design and planning, human, urban and cultural geography, cultural studies, social anthropology, Asian studies, as well as those in wider subdisciplines. (shrink)

Les monuments de Délos et d’Athènes célébrant le pancratiaste et lutteur Ménodôros fils de Gnaios font l’objet d’une analyse conjointe, qui débute par la restitution de leurs bases et la reconstitution du groupe statuaire que portait le premier d’entre eux ; suit un nouvel établissement du texte des inscriptions (ID 1957 et 2498 à Délos, Agora XVIII, C196 / IG II/III3, 4.1, 599, à Athènes), doublé d’une étude des couronnes composant le palmarès de l’athlète. Les données prosopographiques amènent à dater (...) les deux monuments des années 120‑110 et à les situer à l’intersection des chronologies attique et rhodienne. On examine ensuite leur position dans l’histoire du mouvement agonistique et leur environnement topographique. Ces diverses approches aboutissent à des résultats cohérents sur les plans historique et archéologique. (shrink)

This paper intends to illustrate the monuments of the Periklean building programme as embodying acts of temporal configuration; organizing synoptic episodes into an ethno-cultural continuum. A required element to this process is the issue of space, both in its experienced and imagined aspects, as the framework by which temporality is fixed and recounted. By viewing the monuments and accompanying iconography as spatio-temporal configurations, we can see the generation of those elements necessary for the formation of cultural identity via memory. This (...) includes the provision of axial points in time, set in space and wider temporal chronologies, and the election of totemic, and semioticized personages. Moreover, as the configurative action is both framed and informed by its enunciative context, the monuments indicate the promotion of biographical memory, as relating to the Persian Wars, into the register of Athenian cultural memory and temporality. (shrink)

A century after the World War I, studies on the politics of memory and commemoration have grown into a vast and vital academic field. This book approaches the theme "monument and memory" from architectural, literary, philosophical, and theological perspectives. Drawing on diverse sources - from Augustine to Freud, from early photographs to contemporary urban monuments - the book's contributors probe the intersections between memory and trauma, past and present, monuments and memorial practices, religious and secular, remembrance and forgetfulness. (Series: Nordic (...) Studies in Theology / Nordische Studien zur Theologie - Vol. 1) [Subject: Philosophy, Religious Studies, History]. (shrink)

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the significance and meanings of faces within monuments and memorials. The presence of faces in monuments and memorials transcends cultures and spans throughout history. Faces serve as vital components of public statues, conveying the emotions of depicted characters and establishing communicative connections with observers. Moreover, they are employed within memorials to commemorate the deceased. Memorial museums frequently feature corridors adorned with portraits of those who perished in wars, terrorist attacks or natural disasters. The (...) aim of this paper is twofold: firstly, to develop a theoretical and methodological framework for the analysis of faces in monuments and memorials, drawing upon the cultural semiotics of Juri Lotman as well as theories proposed by Algirdas J. Greimas and Umberto Eco. Secondly, to construct a typology that elucidates the various ways faces are utilized within monuments, memorials, and commemorative practices. A historical roadmap of the facial presence in monuments and memorials is then presented. By achieving these aims, this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the meanings of faces within monuments and memorials in particular and memory politics in general. (shrink)

A Monument to Medieval Syrian Book Culture: The Library of Ibn ʿAbd al-Hādī. By Konrad Hirschler. Edinburgh: EdinBurgh University Press, 2019. Pp. x + 624, illus. $130.

In this chapter we focus on the debate over publicly-maintained racist monuments as it manifests in the mid-2010s Anglosphere, primarily in the US (chiefly regarding the over 700 monuments devoted to the Confederacy), but to some degree also in Britain and Commonwealth countries, especially South Africa (chiefly regarding monuments devoted to figures and events associated with colonialism and apartheid). After pointing to some representative examples of racist monuments, we discuss ways a monument can be thought racist, and neutrally categorize removalist (...) and preservationist arguments heard in the monument debate. We suggest that both extremist and moderate removalist goals are likely to be self-defeating, and that when concerns of civic sustainability are put on moral par with those of fairness and justice, something like a Mandela-era preservationist policy is best: one which removes the most offensive of the minor racist monuments, but which focuses on closing the monumentary gap between peoples and reframing existing racist monuments. (shrink)

The Black Lives Matter campaign has forced a reassessment of monuments that commemorate historical figures in public spaces. One of these, a statue of General Lord Roberts, stands in Glasgow, once the Second City of the Empire. A critical reading of this monument as a memorial text in a landscape of power contrasts the intended heroic depiction of Roberts with the excluded histories of those who were on the receiving end of his actions. I consider possible courses of action in (...) determining what should be done with this memorial, recommending against its removal. Keeping the monument in its privileged public space without further action will not do. Arguing that the Roberts memorial is educationally valuable, despite and because of its celebration of Roberts as a hero of Empire, I defend its potential role in postcolonial and postimperial education. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Une découverte récente permet d'interpréter un monument situé à proximité du temple Est du forum : il s'agit d'une longue base pour au moins cinq, et peut-être sept dames dont quatre avaient été prêtresses de Livie. Ce monument, mis en place à l'extrême fin du Ier s. ou au début du n* s. ap. J.-C, a curieusement été respecté lors des importants travaux exécutés au début du règne de Marc-Aurèle. Étude des dédicaces et de la base, et réflexions sur les (...) implications topographiques de cette situation. (shrink)

When does art history begin? Art historiographers typically point to the Renaissance (Vasari) or, alternatively, to Hellenism (Pliny the Elder). But such origin stories become increasingly disconnected from contemporary disciplinary practices, especially as the latter try to rise to the challenge of conducting art history in a more diversified and global way. This essay provides an alternative account of art history’s origin, one that does not try to alleviate the sense of disconnect, but rather develops a global, non-Eurocentric account. The (...) account focuses less on genealogy and more on what necessitates something like an art-historical awareness or attention in the first place. Relying on examples from ancient Mesopotamia, it argues that art-historical thought can be identified whenever and wherever material objects are attended to or produced for their potential to manifest visibly and over time their meaning. (shrink)

In Sophocles' Ichneutai Silenos reproaches the Satyrs for their cowardice. Among other things that he says to them, he contrasts their current attitude to his own bravery in youth; in lines 154-155 he speaks of many monuments of bravery, which he has left in the homes of the nymphs. After illustrating the syntax of these lines and offering a new translation, the author goes on to investigate the possible reference of these "monuments of bravery" and hence of the (alleged) exploits (...) of Silenos. (shrink)

In recent years, there has been renewed controversy about monuments to the Confederacy: these monuments, their detractors insist, are instruments of white supremacy—and, as such, ought to be lowered immediately. The dialectic is by now familiar: though some insist that these monuments are mere sites of memory, others note the relevant memory is that of the Confederacy—and that, because of this, the monuments are inevitably racist. Worse, the monuments were raised by racist individuals for racist ends; no surprise, then, that (...) so many experience them as racist—that is, as instruments of white supremacy. For all of these reasons, the monuments ought to be lowered. -/- And probably it is so. But what does one do when the instrument of white supremacy is a mountain? What does one do, moreover, when it is less than clear whether that mountain is an instrument of white supremacy? What does one do, in other words, when that mountain is a monument to a regime only ambiguously racist? What does one do when it was raised by a racist individual for a racist end—but has since that time come to be seen as a monument to precisely the opposite ideals? What does one do, in other words, when it is experienced by most not as a symbol of white supremacy but as a symbol—indeed, as the symbol—of freedom and equality? -/- What does one do, in short, with Mount Rushmore at this moment—that is, in the wake of the Charleston shooting and the Charlottesville rally? And can the experience of those who saw the mountain prior to its status as a monument—that is, the Lakota—illuminate this question? In this essay, I examine these monumental questions. I ask them—and try to answer them—first as a consequentialist, second as a deontologist, and third as a virtue ethicist. (shrink)

This collection of newly published essays examines our relationship to physical objects that invoke, commemorate, and honor the past. The recent destruction of cultural heritage in war and controversies over Civil War monuments in the US have foregrounded the importance of artifacts that embody history. The book invites us to ask: How do memorials convey their meanings? What is our responsibility for the preservation or reconstruction of historically significant structures? How should we respond when the public display of a monument (...) divides a community? This anthology includes coverage of the destruction of Palmyra and the Bamiyan Buddhas, the loss of cultural heritage through war and natural disasters, the explosive controversies surrounding Confederate-era monuments, and the decay of industry in the U.S. Rust Belt. The authors consider issues of preservation and reconstruction, the nature of ruins, the aesthetic and ethical values of memorials, and the relationship of cultural memory to material artifacts that remain from the past. Written by a leading group of philosophers, art historians, and archeologists, the 23 chapters cover monuments and memorials from Dubai to Detroit, from the instant destruction of Hiroshima to the gradual sinking of Venice. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

Zusammenfassung Am Ende des 2. Jahrhunderts v. Chr. hatte die gens Fabia – eine der ältesten und prominentesten patrizischen gentes – ein ganzes Spektrum von Strategien der Selbstdarstellung vor ihren Standesgenossen und dem Volk entwickelt, die besonders dicht miteinander vernetzt waren: Dazu gehörten einerseits die ambivalenten Mythen wie die Abstammung der gens von Herakles, der Untergang der Fabii am Cremera-Bach und ihre Verwicklung in das Desaster an der Allia; die diversen, von prominenten Mitgliedern geweihten Tempel wie diejenigen für Venus und (...) Honos; Monumente wie die Herakles-Statue des berühmten Lysippos, die der später als ‚Cunctator‘ gefeierte Q. Fabius Maximus nach seiner Eroberung von Tarent hatte nach Rom bringen und auf dem Capitol aufstellen lassen, und zwar in unmittelbarer Nachbarschaft mit seiner eigenen Reiterstatue, sowie weitere visuelle Medien und andererseits die performativen Strategien wie spektakuläre Triumphe und andere pompae. Diese wurden durch ein neues Medium ergänzt und erweitert: Vor allem Fabius Pictors bahnbrechende Geschichte Roms sowie die schriftlich verbreitete laudatio funebris des erwähnten Cunctator auf seinen Sohn wurden ein integraler Teil des komplexen Repertoires der multimedialen Strategien der fabischen Selbstdarstellung. (shrink)

Journal of Philosophy of Education, EarlyView.

This article addresses debates around the fate of antiquated symbols of colonial domination in postcolonial societies. The handling of apartheid material culture still generates controversy more than 15 years after the country’s first democratic elections. Built in 1949 to commemorate the Great Trek into the interior of the country, the Voortrekker Monument in Pretoria has stood as the embodiment of Afrikaner nationalism and mythology. A number of factors prevented the demolition of the site, including the spirit of national reconciliation. In (...) order to remain relevant and to secure state funding, staff members at the Voortrekker Monument have attempted to map onto the original exclusionary imagery a more inclusive narrative that hinges on the protection of ‘minority rights’ to cultural preservation. This case study sheds light on the way political transitions create openings for the interrogation of colonial monuments – whether they should be destroyed, revised or left untouched – and the development of a postcolonial memorial landscape. (shrink)

This collection of newly published essays examines our relationship to physical objects that invoke, commemorate, and honor the past. The recent destruction of cultural heritage in war and controversies over Civil War monuments in the US have foregrounded the importance of artifacts that embody history. The book invites us to ask: How do memorials convey their meanings? What is our responsibility for the preservation or reconstruction of historically significant structures? How should we respond when the public display of a monument (...) divides a community? This anthology includes coverage of the destruction of Palmyra and the Bamiyan Buddhas, the loss of cultural heritage through war and natural disasters, the explosive controversies surrounding Confederate-era monuments, and the decay of industry in the U.S. Rust Belt. The authors consider issues of preservation and reconstruction, the nature of ruins, the aesthetic and ethical values of memorials, and the relationship of cultural memory to material artifacts that remain from the past. Written by a leading group of philosophers, art historians, and archeologists, the 23 chapters cover monuments and memorials from Dubai to Detroit, from the instant destruction of Hiroshima to the gradual sinking of Venice. (shrink)

Le monument dit «des Navarques », élevé à Delphes par Lysandre après la victoire remportée sur les Athéniens à Aigos-Potamoi (405 av. J.-C.), est connu depuis longtemps par des textes et par des dalles inscrites provenant de la plinthe des statues. Plusieurs localisations et plusieurs restitutions architecturales en ont été proposées sur la base d’une documentation souvent inexacte ou mal comprise et toujours incomplète. Critique des principales hypothèses. Une connaissance plus étendue du secteur et de l’ensemble des éléments, y compris (...) les blocs de construction dégagés par la fouille, permet de présenter, à défaut d’une restitution unique et certaine, un panel de solutions plus vraisemblables. (shrink)

Cet article constitue la publication architecturale de la base dite « des Galates » (IG XI, 4, 1110), située devant l’extrémité Nord du Portique Sud, à Délos. L’analyse des vestiges conservés in situ et des blocs erratiques attribués au monument par R. Vallois, Chr. Llinas et nous‑mêmes, permet de resti­tuer une grande base à orthostates à peu près carrée. Les traces de fixation encore visibles à la face supérieure de son couronnement laissent penser que le monument supportait la représentation d’un (...) trophée et une statue en pied, toutes les deux en bronze, dédiées par Attale Ier suite à ses victoires remportées sur les Galates après le milieu du iiie s. Le groupe associait Niké, ou peut‑être une divinité comme Apollon, à un trophée, de préférence à une statue du roi qui a érigé le monument. (shrink)

The article is devoted to an important area of scientific research related to the history and culture of Yakutia. Written monuments of historical and cultural heritage, along with material ones, occupy their permanent place. The solution to the problem of their preservation and interpretation is inextricably linked with publishing activities – modern technical capabilities increase its effectiveness. In the article we study the existing experience in this field by the example of the publication of Russian cursive sources of the XVII (...) century about the history of Yakutia, as well as cultural heritage. The object of the study is the historical and cultural heritage of Yakutia. The subject of the study ate the samples in various forms. The research summarized the experience of publishing historical and cultural heritage monuments on the example of Russian cursive documents of the XVII century about Yakutia, as well as the works of the first Yakut composer M.N. Zhirkov. Since they are of great value as samples of archival documents reflecting regional specifics, we have carried out work to determine their historical significance for the culture of Yakutia. In this article, based on an assessment of the internal content of the collections considered as examples and the quality of their publication, recommendations have been developed to improve further work in this direction. Undoubtedly, further work should be continued to identify such written monuments that require special storage and interpretation, have great historical and cultural value for the Yakut people, as well as transfer to modern media of this information, taking into account the necessary publication rules. For the first time, the question of creating a pan-Yakut electronic database of written monuments of historical and cultural heritage of Yakutia was raised. (shrink)

The prevailing historiographies of Jewish life in England suggest that religious representations of the Jews in the early modern period were confined to the margins and fringes of society by the desacralization of English life. Such representations are mostly neglected in the scholarly literature for the latter half of the long eighteenth century, and English Methodist texts in particular have received little attention. This article addresses these lacunae by examining the discourse of Adam Clarke, an erudite Bible scholar, theologian, preacher (...) and author and a prominent, respected, Methodist scholar. Significantly, the more overt demonological representations were either absent from Clarke‘s discourse, or only appeared on a few occasions, and were vague as to who or what was signified. However, Clarke portrayed biblical Jews as perfidious, cruel, murderous, an accursed seed, of an accursed breed and radically and totally evil. He also commented on contemporary Jews, maintaining that they were foolish, proud, uncharitable, intolerant and blasphemous. He argued that in their eternal, wretched, dispersed condition, the Jews demonstrated the veracity of biblical prophecy, and served an essential purpose as living monuments to the truth of Christianity. (shrink)

Amsterdam University Press is a leading publisher of academic books, journals and textbooks in the Humanities and Social Sciences. Our aim is to make current research available to scholars, students, innovators, and the general public. AUP stands for scholarly excellence, global presence, and engagement with the international academic community.

The article demonstrates the possibility of applying an ANT to the analysis of religious monuments. The study of religion within the framework of memory studies demonstrates the realization of a trend laid down in the works of Durkheim regarding the distinction between religion and sacralization as a social phenomenon. From this point of view, religion cannot be regarded as an isolated social institution, but is a way of expressing the functional need to form a sacralized set of social practices and (...) rituals that contribute to the consolidation of society and the strengthening of collective identity. At the same time, in a pluralistic society, the preservation of this function by religion appears to be methodologically archaic, which suggests the involvement of new theoretical approaches that can problematize the place of religion in social space, whilst demonstrating the heterogeneity and fragmentation of religious practices. As a new theoretical model, the article proposes to use the variant of ANT presented in the works of J. Law. Its main principles are the use of spatial metaphors in describing social objects, as well as emphasizing the material status of objects that conflict with spatial configurations. The application of this approach to the analysis of religious monuments allows us to talk about the distinction between the material and network projection of monuments. A religious monument is not just a product of the representation of a certain symbolic system, but also has its own status as an actor. On the one hand, it becomes part of existing network of interactions, and, on the other, it creates new connections and new antitheses that transform the existing memorial landscape, giving rise to new forms of spatial configurations. (shrink)

A new examination of the remains still in place and the missing blocks from the Daochos monument leads to the restoration of a brick chamber on a stone base opening to the west. There must have been statues of family members of the tetrarch and hieromnemom Daochos of Pharsala there, as well as a second group of effigies placed differently. A bunch of marks suggests that the group was destroyed by a natural accident at the time when the statues were (...) being put in place. (shrink)

This article researches multidirectional memory and transnationality in recent examples of counter-monument practices in Austria’s capital city, Vienna, specifically in regard to fights against antisemitism, racist discrimination and anti-Romaism. How have multidirectional strategies shaped counter-mnemonic struggle? Additionally, to what extent are they influenced by transnationality? Three examples of counter-monument practices are discussed in parallel: (1) The protests against the “Lueger monument,” commemorating an antisemitic former mayor of Vienna; (2) the illegally installed Marcus Omofuma Stone, commemorating the racist police murder of (...) a Nigerian asylum seeker in 1999; and, (3) the ongoing struggle to commemorate the Porajmos, the genocide of the Roma under Nazi rule, with a monument in Vienna. Seemingly unrelated to one another, each case constitutes a struggle between national, hegemonic, commemorative narratives, on the one hand, and agents of civil society that challenge these narratives, on the other. While none of the three examples constitutes an obvious case of multidirectional memory making, each of these struggles to counter racist, discriminatory pasts did generate a platform to speak about more than just one memory, also such that transcend national boundaries. (shrink)

In autumn 1839 George Dunn found himself traveling across the rain-swept open fen land of Cambridgeshire. His journey south from Warrington had taken fifteen hours, and he was now nearing his destination, a farm on the banks of the Old Bedford River. The flat, exposed landscape must have seemed particularly desolate in such weather, and while he was no doubt glad to be reaching his destination, Dunn's thoughts turned to the Slough of Despond.1 That he should have recalled a passage (...) from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress may have been particularly apt, not only for the dismal weather but for what lay at his journey's end. Dunn had traveled all this way to join Manea Fen, a community established along lines laid out by .. (shrink)

This article examines geographies of decolonization and the Cold War through a case study in the making of archeological knowledge. The article focuses on an archeological dig that took place in Egypt in the period between the July 1952 Free Officers’ coup and the 1956 Suez crisis. Making use of the notion of the ‘boundary object’, this article demonstrates how the excavation of ancient Egyptian remains at the site of Mit Rahina helped to constitute Nasserist revolutionary modernity and its relationship (...) to wider, post-Second World War political geographies. The dig took place as a result of an Egyptian–American collaboration designed to institute the possibility of archeology taking place along the lines of the Point Four modernization program promoted by the United States. The article discusses how this situation not only engendered contention surrounding the role of the international ‘experts’ appointed to run this excavation work, but also – and as a result – helped to constitute the monumental visual and material shape that archeological evidence relating to the Egyptian past could now take. Egypt’s revolution sat within wider Cold War political struggles, yet the ‘ground-up’ realities of this relationship helped to constitute the sort of past (and future) monumentality proposed by Nasser’s government. (shrink)

Name der Zeitschrift: Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook Jahrgang: 2016 Heft: 1 Seiten: 159-186.

In Pastoral and Monumental, Donald C. Jackson chronicles America's longtime fascination with dams as represented on picture postcards from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. Through over four hundred images, Jackson documents the remarkable transformation of dams and their significance to the environment and culture of America. Initially, dams were portrayed in pastoral settings on postcards that might jokingly proclaim them as “a dam pretty place.” But scenes of flood damage, dam collapses, and other disasters also captured people's attention. (...) Later, images of New Deal projects, such as the Hoover Dam, Grand Coulee Dam, and Norris Dam, symbolized America's rise from the Great Depression through monumental public works and technological innovation. Jackson relates the practical applications of dams, describing their use in irrigation, navigation, flood control, hydroelectric power, milling, mining, and manufacturing. He chronicles changing construction techniques, from small timber mill dams to those more massive and more critical to a society dependent on instant access to electricity and potable water. Concurrent to the evolution of dam technology, Jackson recounts the rise of a postcard culture that was fueled by advances in printing, photography, lowered postal rates, and America's fascination with visual imagery. In 1910, almost one billion postcards were mailed through the U.S. Postal Service, and for a period of over fifty years, postcards featuring dams were “all the rage.” Whether displaying the charms of an old mill, the aftermath of a devastating flood, or the construction of a colossal gravity dam, these postcards were a testament to how people perceived dams as structures of both beauty and technological power. (shrink)

The activities of early Protestantism have been sufficiently researched, especially nowadays. But most of the works are mostly about his penetration into the Ukrainian land and adaptation to new socio-historical conditions. Unfortunately, the original base of early Protestantism, in particular Calvinism, has not been practically studied, though we have preserved two particularly noteworthy testimonies of Ukrainian Calvinists. One of them is the Gospel teachings that emerged in the sixteenth century. in Transcarpathia in the village of Nyagovo of the present Tyachiv (...) district. The monument is so unexplored that even the Calvinist content is expressed in the scientific literature. In this connection, we set ourselves the task of analyzing the content of this monument and bringing it to Calvinism, that is, to reformation. (shrink)

In this chapter, we focus on the debate over publicly maintained racist monuments as it manifests in the mid-2010s Anglosphere, primarily in the United States and South Africa. After pointing to some representative examples of racist monuments, we discuss ways a monument can be thought racist and neutrally categorize removalist and preservationist arguments heard in the monument debate. We suggest that both extremist and moderate removalist goals are likely to be self-defeating and that when concerns of civic sustainability are put (...) on moral par with those of fairness and justice, something like a Mandela-era preservationist policy is best: one which removes the most offensive of the minor racist monuments, but which focuses on closing the monumentary gap between peoples and reframing existing racist monuments. (shrink)