Image: Wiehen Hills, on the trail to Porta Westfalica, 25 Nov 2017 (c) M. Demantowsky
Summer term 2023
22 May 2023, 6:30 p.m.
Venue: Wien, Universitätshauptgebäude, Hörsaal 41
Dr. Moira Pérez (Buenos Aires)
Monuments, vandalism, and colonial temporality
The most recent upsurge in interventions on contested monuments is characterized by giving center stage to Western European colonialism and its deadly consequences around the world. Apart from traditional debates around heritage and historical change, these tendencies opened other discussions (which in several contexts were long overdue) about coloniality and the participation of Western countries in the economy of slave trade and extractivism. Centering coloniality as a key element in the past and the present -and in the bridges between them, such as monuments- allows us to reassess our notions of temporality and how it is expressed in historical narratives and in the public space. In this conference, Dr. Perez will analyze the temporalities involved in monuments, particularly those expressing some form of Western European colonialism, and will consider what the recent wave of iconoclasm can teach us about colonial temporality.
Biography
Moira Pérez is Fellow at the Forschungsinstitut für Philosophie Hannover, Germany, and Assistant Researcher at the National Council for Scientific and Technical Research, Argentina. Her work focuses on the interplay between identity and violence (including epistemic violence), and brings together contributions of narrativist philosophies of history, queer theory, and decolonial and postcolonial studies, among others. In relation to the representation of the past, she has worked on narratives of progress in social movements, agency-building through historical representations of marginalized groups, and pinkwashing through official histories. Her current project addresses contested monuments, particularly those related to coloniality, and the debates surrounding how and who should deal with them.
Website: https://www.aacademica.org/moira.perez
15 May 2023, 6:30 p.m.
Venue: Wien, Universitätshauptgebäude, Hörsaal 41
Dr. Alex von Tunzelmann (London)
Fallen Idols: Statues, History and Memory
In 2020, hundreds of statues were pulled down around the world, from the USA, UK and Belgium to Bangladesh, Colombia and New Zealand. There had been dramatic waves of iconoclasm before – such as the French Revolution or during the fall of the Soviet Union – but never on a global scale. Alex von Tunzelmannconsiders iconoclasm both as a phenomenon within modern history, from the American Revolution to today, and as a response to that history and historiography. Unpicking the politics for and against putting up and pulling down statues, she shows how debates over the public representation of history are central to our identities and communities today.
Biography
Alex von Tunzelmann is a historian, broadcaster and screenwriter, who appears regularly on the BBC, Sky News and Monocle 24. She has written for a huge range of international publications including The Guardian, The New York Times, and Prospect. Her most recent book, Fallen Idols: Twelve Statues that Made History (2021), was shortlisted for the Wolfson History Prize 2022. Her previous books have included the international bestseller Indian Summer: The Secret History of the End of an Empire (2007). She made her international feature film debut as a screenwriter with Churchill (2017), starring Brian Cox and Miranda Richardson. She is based in London.
Website: https://www.headline.co.uk/titles/alex-von-tunzelmann/fallen-idols/9781472281890/