This will be a virtual event. Information on how to access the event stream will be sent via email in advance of the event.

An urgent and fractious national debate over public monuments has erupted in America. Some people risk imprisonment to tear down long-ignored hunks of marble; others form armed patrols to defend them. Why do we care so much about statues? And who gets to decide which ones should stay up and which should come down?

Join us for a conversation with Barnard alumna Erin Thompson, the country’s leading expert in the tangled aesthetic, legal, political, and social issues involved in such battles to discuss all that protesting statues entails and to discuss her book, Smashing Statues, in which she traces the turbulent history of American monuments and its abundant ironies, starting with the enslaved man who helped make the statue of Freedom atop the US Capitol, to exploring the surprising motivations behind such contemporary flashpoints as the toppling of a statue of Columbus at the Minnesota State Capitol. Written with great verve and thoroughly researched, Smashing Statues gives readers the context they need to consider the fundamental question: Whose voices must be heard and whose pain must remain private?

Copies of Erin's book Smashing Statues will be distributed to the first 20 Barnard student attendees.

This event is co-sponsored by Barnard's American Studies, Anthropology, Art History, and Political Science Departments.

SPARK with Erin Thompson '02 :: On Protesting Monuments