Lectures on Tap - "Problematic Monuments in Chicago’s Public Art Landscape"

📍 Location: Exact address given in confirmation email

🧠 Lecture: "Problematic Monuments in Chicago’s Public Art Landscape"

🎙️ Speaker: Prof. Peter Cole

Join us for a thought-provoking evening as Professor Peter Cole examines how Chicago’s public monuments shape what – and who – we remember. Public art is never neutral: it reflects the values of the dominant community and can either reinforce injustice or challenge it.

This lecture will explore the surprising and contested history of Chicago’s public art, including monuments such as the Haymarket Police Monument, the Confederate Mound in Oak Woods Cemetery, and the Balbo Monument, dedicated to Italian fascism. Professor Cole will also highlight new monument projects designed to confront racism and historical amnesia.

As co-director of the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project, Cole will connect past and present, closing with a discussion of current efforts to remember one of the city’s most consequential racial uprisings.

Peter Cole is a Professor of History and Distinguished University Professor at Western Illinois University, a Research Fellow at the International Institute of Social History, and a Research Associate at the University of the Witwatersrand. An award-winning historian of labor, race, and radicalism, he is the author or editor of several acclaimed books on dockworkers and global labor movements.

Get a drink, connect, and learn at Lectures on Tap! 🙌

Agenda

6:30 PM – Doors open: find a seat (open seating!), order food & drinks, and expect a bar line—arriving early is key.

6:55 PM – Host introduction

7:00 PM – Lecture begins

7:45 PM – Audience Q&A

8:00 PM – Have 1:1 time with the speaker, mingle with fellow guests, and order another round

8:30 PM – Wrap up.