Monuments as Cultural and Critical Objects

<p><em>Monuments as Cultural and Critical Objects</em> explores monuments as political psychical social and mystical objects. Incorporating autoethnography psychoanalysis deconstruction postcolonialism and queer ecology Houlton argues for a radical interdisciplinary approach to our monument-culture. </p><p>Tracing historical developments in monuments alongside contemporary movements such as Rhodes Must Fall and Black Lives Matter Houlton provides an in-depth critique of monument sites as well as new critical and conceptual methodologies for thinking across the field. Alongside analysis of monuments to the Holocaust colonial figures and LGBTQIA+ subjects this book provides new critical engagements with the work of D.W. Winnicott Marion Milner Jacques Derrida Edward Said Eve Sedgwick and others. Houlton traces the potential for monuments to exert great influence over our sense of self nation community sexuality and place in the world. Exploring the psychic and physical spaces these objects occupy—their aesthetics affects politics and powers—this book considers how monuments can challenge our identities beliefs and our very notions of remembrance. </p><p>The interdisciplinary nature of <i>Monuments as Cultural and Critical Objects</i> means that it is ideally placed to intervene across several critical fields particularly museum and heritage studies. It will also prove invaluable to those engaged in the study of monuments psychoanalytic object relations decolonization queer ecology radical death studies and affect theory.</p>