The "Post-Truth" of Confederate Monuments

• In Event: 43.079 - Sheraton Roundtable Session Six - Grand Centre
  In Roundtable Session: 43.079-7 - Art History and Gallery Workshops as Pedagogy

Abstract

This paper addresses Confederate monuments throughout the southern US, and particularly in Virginia. Through an historical analysis of primary source materials as well as contemporary approaches to art history, this paper works to contextualize the monuments by elucidating other contemporaneous events. Using a case study of Richmond, Virginia, the paper argues that the monuments were one element, among many, of the Jim Crow era designed to disenfranchise African Americans and other people of color.

Author

• Melanie L. Buffington, Virginia Commonwealth University