Project Title: ‘To Mourn a Mounment’ : Art as a Tool of Legitimation
Project Description: The visual culture of a civilization provides its descendants with a tangible form of identity. In periods of conflict, cultural heritage is often destroyed so as to erase the memory of a people. This damnatio memoriae often occurs in two forms: traditional iconoclasm and Bruno Latour’s proposed iconoclash – which focuses on image creation out of its own destruction. I am interested in the semiotics of visual culture, attempting to understand how a civilization views the images and abstractions on a supersensory plane and how the decimation of these same images is often tailored to each belief system.
Most Important Accomplishment: Thus far my greatest accomplishment has been the total pursuit of my passions within the humanities. Cornell has allowed my academic curiosity to be unbounded – and in it I have found such happiness.
Reflections on the College Scholar Program: The College Scholar Program has provided me with a peer-group that represents some of the most ambitious and innately curious individuals here at Cornell. To work alongside this cohort has been invaluable; I am constantly inspired to consider new avenues for research that I would have otherwise never taken. I am immensely grateful for the experience of meeting so many scholars of varying interests with the same passion for learning.