Falling and Rising: Public Monuments & Cultural Heritage in a Time of Protest

Digital dialogues from experts exploring the roles of monuments, public art, and cultural heritage

The Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History and The Athenaeum Review at the University of Texas at Dallas are pleased to present a digital series of interviews with art historians, historians, and archaeologists that examine the current cultural moment of renewed attention to the role of public art.

Cultural heritage serves as an important locus for crowd activity and public response. Participants in this interview series discuss narratives that monuments communicate, responses they engender, and issues of cultural heritage their protection or destruction raise.

This series of interviews was filmed in Fall of 2020.



Episode 1

Erika Doss, Ph.D., Professor of American Studies, Notre Dame University

Dr. Erika Doss, Professor of American Studies, Notre Dame University in conversation with Heather Bowling, Research Coordinator, Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History on the roles memorials play in past and present with new struggles forward.

Filmed by the O'Donnell Institute, September 2020


Episode 2

Whitney Stewart, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Historical Studies, UT Dallas

Dr. Whitney Stewart, Assistant Professor of Historical Studies at UT Dallas, in conversation with Dr. Benjamin Lima, Editor of Athenaeum Review, on the practices of home building and home making by enslaved people at historical plantation sites, the phenomenon of plantation tourism, and efforts to reimagine the historical past. Read More

Filmed by the O'Donnell Institute, September 2020


Episode 3

Renée Ater, Ph.D., Public Scholar

Dr. Renée Ater, public scholar, interviewed by Dr. Benjamin Lima, Editor of the Athenaeum Review, on the shifting views towards artists building monuments, tension in messages that monuments deliver, and the impact of community and civic engagement with monuments in local and other sharable spaces. Read More

Filmed by the O'Donnell Institute, October 2020


Episode 4

Mark Rosen, Ph.D., Associate Professor of Visual and Performing Arts, and Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies in the School of Arts and Humanities at The University of Texas at Dallas

Dr. Mark Rosen, Associate Professor of Visual and Performing Arts, and Associate Dean of Undergraduate Studies in the School of Arts and Humanities at The University of Texas at Dallas, in conversation with Dr. Benjamin Lima, Editor of Athenaeum Review. They discuss Pietro Tacca’s monument Quattro Mori (“Four Moors”) in Livorno, Italy. This monument was completed in 1626 amid the conditions of slavery in Tuscany’s main port city, which had a newly constructed bagno and a massive slave trade.
Read More

Filmed by the O'Donnell Institute, October 2020


Episode 5

Penelope Davies, Ph.D., Professor of Art History at the University of Texas at Austin

Dr. Penelope Davies, Professor of Art History at the University of Texas at Austin and Dr. Michael Thomas, Director of the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History, in conversation about the life and death of public art and architecture in Ancient Rome. They discuss notions of a collective history expressed and solidified through public monuments, as well as the power of architecture to legitimize systems of power.

Filmed by the O'Donnell Institute, November 2020


Episode 6

Nils Roemer, Ph.D., Stan and Barbara Rabin Professor in Holocaust Studies, Director of the Ackerman Center for Holocaust Studies, and Interim Dean of the School of Arts and Humanities, UT Dallas

Dr. Nils Roemer in conversation with Dr. Benjamin Lima, editor of Athenaeum Review, about a memorial complex of three monuments in Hamburg, Germany, dating from the 1930s, 1980s and 2010s, that together tell a complex story about war and remembrance.

Filmed by the O'Donnell Institute, November 2020


The Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History at the University of Texas at Dallas is a center for innovative research and education in art history, and a community of scholars dedicated to collaboration and exchange.

Athenaeum Review is a publication of the School of Arts and Humanities and the Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History at the University of Texas at Dallas of essays, reviews, and podcasts by leading scholars in the arts and humanities.