{"id":1184,"date":"2026-04-02T09:15:36","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T13:15:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/templehonors\/?p=1184"},"modified":"2026-04-02T09:15:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T13:15:36","slug":"monuments-are-mortal-public-art-issues-of-permanence-and-cultural-vandalism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/templehonors\/2026\/04\/02\/monuments-are-mortal-public-art-issues-of-permanence-and-cultural-vandalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Monuments Are Mortal: Public Art, Issues of Permanence, and Cultural Vandalism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>Join us for a virtual talk by Dr. Erika Doss.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Thursday, April 2<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>4:30 pm &#8211; 6:00 pm<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Event Link<\/strong>:&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com\/?url=https%3A%2F%2F1a04.edulnk.com%2Fe%2Fmujb1%2FlYzX-C%3F__%24u__%26nk%3DNjljZDdlYmYxMzNhNDBjMDIyMjNiODZlLGhvbm9yc0B0ZW1wbGUuZWR1Ojo6cDRlNGVvYnl1eGgycndyMw..&amp;data=05%7C02%7Cdevhpatel%40temple.edu%7C89cfbe9d5e474356978608de902e434d%7C716e81efb52244738e3110bd02ccf6e5%7C0%7C0%7C639106725569738280%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJFbXB0eU1hcGkiOnRydWUsIlYiOiIwLjAuMDAwMCIsIlAiOiJXaW4zMiIsIkFOIjoiTWFpbCIsIldUIjoyfQ%3D%3D%7C0%7C%7C%7C&amp;sdata=cq79R%2F8nrlaWpIKgauqg9vX%2B3WlH4TJb6bf5Qvbcmjs%3D&amp;reserved=0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">https:\/\/temple.zoom.us\/j\/92418667821<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Erika Doss<\/strong>&nbsp;is a Distinguished Chair in the Edith O\u2019Donnell Institute of Art History at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her scholarship engages the complexities of modern and contemporary American visual and material culture, with particular attention to public art, monuments, and the politics of memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Doss is widely known for her influential study&nbsp;<em>Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America<\/em>&nbsp;(2010), which analyzes the emotional dynamics behind contemporary memorials and commemorative practices, from grief and gratitude to shame and anger, and remains a key text in monument and memory studies. More recently, Doss published&nbsp;<em>Spiritual Moderns: Twentieth Century American Artists and Religion&nbsp;<\/em>(2023), expanding discussions of belief and meaning in modern American art. Her current research continues to focus on monuments and public memory, including projects such as&nbsp;<em>Monuments Are Mortal: Public Art, Permanence, and Cultural Vandalism<\/em>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<em>Troubling Memorials: American Reckoning with the Stuff of History<\/em>, which address the contested status, fragility, and political afterlives of monuments in contemporary public culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Image Credit:<\/strong>&nbsp;Kara Walker\u2019s&nbsp;<em>Unmanned Drone<\/em>&nbsp;(2023\u20132025), a sculpture the artist remade from a statue of Confederate general Stonewall Jackson that was removed from Charlottesville, VA in 2021. The photograph shows Walker\u2019s sculpture installed in the exhibition&nbsp;<em>Monuments<\/em>&nbsp;at The Brick in Los Angeles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Join us for a virtual talk by Dr. Erika Doss. Thursday, April 2 4:30 pm &#8211; 6:00 pm Event Link:&nbsp;https:\/\/temple.zoom.us\/j\/92418667821 Erika Doss&nbsp;is a Distinguished Chair in the Edith O\u2019Donnell Institute of Art History at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her scholarship engages the complexities of modern and contemporary American visual and material culture, with&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36699,"featured_media":1185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-events"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/templehonors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/templehonors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/templehonors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/templehonors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36699"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/templehonors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/templehonors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1186,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/templehonors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1184\/revisions\/1186"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/templehonors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/templehonors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/templehonors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.temple.edu\/templehonors\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}