Noreen Stonor Drexel Cultural and Historic Preservation Keynote

This year's keynote address will be given by Dr. Erin L. Thompson of the City University of New York. Her talk is titled "The Role of History in Monumental Debates: The Case of Stone Mountain." The world’s largest Confederate monument is carved into the granite cliff face of Stone Mountain, outside Atlanta, Georgia. The park surrounding the monument remains the state’s most-visited tourist destination. Begun in 1915 and finished only in 1972, the monument has been used a tool for embezzling donations, a rallying point for resistance to integration and an inspiration for the revival of the Ku Klux Klan – not once but twice. This talk argues that understanding the monument’s long history is crucial to current debates about whether it – and America’s many other controversial monuments – should be preserved, modified or removed. Thompson holds a Ph.D. in classical art history and a JD, both from Columbia University, along with a certificate in global business law from the Institut d’Études Politiques and Paris I (Sorbonne). She is a professor of art crime at John Jay College (City University of New York), where she studies the damage done to cultural heritage and communities through looting, theft and deliberate destruction of cultural heritage (as well as its deliberate preservation). She is the author of "Possession: The Curious History of Private Collectors" (Yale, 2016) and "Smashing Statues: The Rise and Fall of American Monuments" (Norton, 2022). A member of the advisory committee for the Nepal Heritage Recovery Campaign, she has assisted authorities, activists and collectors in numerous repatriation cases in the United States and abroad.

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