From Deutsches Haus NYU:

Deutsches Haus at NYU presents “Pushing Columbus, Jefferson, Bismarck & Co. Off the Pedestal? Current Conflicts in Memory Cultures and the Politics of History” a public talk and conversation with Sabine Sielke (University of Bonn) and Marita Sturken (NYU). Statues of famous figures in world history are currently under severe attack; and this „iconoclasm“ is by no means a new phenomenon. Yet while some activists promote the quick disposal of monuments honoring characters whose heroism appears questionable in hindsight and whose display is deemed to reaffirm racism, others fear that along with contested sculptures, our sense of history gets disposed and we become all too forgetful. This talk marks some of the frontlines of the so-called “culture wars” whose concepts and strategies get adapted from U.S.-American debates for historical contexts on foreign turf that cannot be compared.