About:

About this class:

This is a 4-meeting virtual class using the Zoom platform.

Thursdays Jan 18, Feb 1, 8, 15 - 7-9 pm Central time.

Through an extended role-playing game, students will debate whether to preserve, relocate, reinterpret, or remove a controversial monument. We will play "Memory Reconsidered: San Francisco Pioneer Monument during the Culture Wars, 1991-1996," a game developed by the instructor. Students will be assigned a specific historic character to play. Class time via Zoom will be used to debate and negotiate the monument's fate. Students will be encouraged to engage beyond class time via a private Slack channel.

Instructor bio:

Cynthia Prescott has taught courses on the American West, women's history, and material culture at the University of North Dakota since 2007. She is the author of two books, Pioneer Mother Monuments: Constructing Cultural Memory (2019) and Gender and Generation on the Far Western Frontier (2007).

Humanities North Dakota classes and events are funded in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities.

HND VALUE STATEMENT

Any views, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this program do not necessarily represent those of the National Endowment for the Humanities or Humanities North Dakota. However, in an increasingly polarized world, we at Humanities North Dakota believe that being open-minded is necessary to thinking critically and rationally. Therefore our programs and classes reflect our own open-mindedness in the inquiry, seeking, and acquiring of scholars to speak at our events and teach classes for our Public University. To that end, we encourage our participants to join us in stepping outside our comfort zones and considering other perspectives and ideas by being open-minded while attending HND events featuring scholars who hold a variety of opinions, some being opposite of our own held beliefs.