Redefining Monuments

This book critically explores monuments, delving into their significance within colonial, gender and class realms through theory and real-world case studies. This book challenges the conventional notion of monuments, advocating for an intersectional materialist approach to memory theory and a more radical engagement with heritage. Tracing the roots of monumentality to racial capitalism, the book highlights the contemporary implications of this concept. This book offers essential reading for anyone interested in understanding the complex intersections of memory and heritage in contemporary society. José María Durán Medraño holds a PhD in Art History from the UNED and in Philosophy from the Freie Universität Berlin. He currently teaches Cultural Studies at the Hochschule für Musik Hanns Eisler in Berlin. His publications include the books La crítica de la economía política del arte (2015) and Iconoclasia, historia del arte y lucha de clases (2009). He is a member of the research Project PERMORIA at the Universidade de Santiago de Compostela. Daniel Palacios González holds a PhD in Art History from the Universität zu Köln, where he was an MSCA Fellow. He is currently a Postdoctoral Researcher at UNED and previously a Postdoctoral Fellow at Birkbeck, University of London. He is the author of Making Monuments from Mass Graves in Contemporary Spain (2024) and De fosas comunes a lugares de memoria (2022), which received the Memory Studies Association First Book Award in 2023. He is a member of the research project NECROPOL at the Universitat de Barcelona.