Monuments Decolonized: Algeria’s French Colonial Heritage

Book panel discussion with Susan Slyomovics, Zeynep Celik and Ralph Ghoche, introduced by Emmanuelle Saada.

“Statuomania” overtook Algeria beginning in the nineteenth century as the French affinity for monuments placed thousands of war memorials across the French colony. But following Algeria’s hard-fought independence in 1962, these monuments took on different meaning and some were “repatriated” to France, legally or clandestinely. Today, in both Algeria and France, people are moving and removing, vandalizing and preserving this contested, yet shared monumental heritage.

Susan Slyomovics follows the afterlives of French-built war memorials in Algeria and those taken to France in her new book, Monuments Decolonized: Algeria’s French Colonial Heritage (2024, Stanford University Press). Drawing on extensive fieldwork and interviews in both countries, she analyzes the colonial nostalgia, dissonant heritage, and ongoing decolonization and iconoclasm of these works of art. Her book offers a fresh aesthetic take on the increasingly global move to fell monuments that celebrate settler colonial histories.

Susan Slyomovics is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology and Near Eastern Languages & Cultures at the University of California, Los Angeles. Her previous books include The Object of Memory: Arab and Jew Narrate the Palestinian Village (1998) and How to Accept German Reparations (2014).

This event is co-sponsored by the Maison Française, Department of Anthropology, Middle East Institute, and the Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation.

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