Sanford Levinson

Sanford Levinson’s Written in Stone analyzes monuments and how their interpretation changes over time as cultures evolved. Levinson focuses on the Southern United States primarily. Levinson argues that the messages interpreted by the public are seen as official statements by the state.

Levinson begins by examining the Millennium Monument in Budapest. With each regime change from Habsburg to State to Communist the previous characters on the monument are removed and replaced with whoever is deemed more appropriate at the time. Levinson uses the example of the Millennium Monument is illustrate how commemorative objects can be erased as if the history behind them never happened.

The author then goes on discuss one potential possibility for the state’s role in monuments. As a Constitutional lawyer, Levinson uses Owen Fiss’s argument over true state neutrality. It seems that Fiss (and Levinson) believes that real neutrality would result in the state funding of almost any and all public art or commemorative projects. An interesting example that Fiss makes is that true neutrality would require cities to cease naming streets after Martin Luther King, Jr. and instead also include ones named for Eugene “Bull” Connor (86). Levinson argues that this example reveals that true neutrality is not really accessible. Another possibility for neutrality would be to cease funding of public monuments entirely and even remove already existing ones. Would this solve any problems? Well, it might stop public argument over interpretations but what would a country be without heroes or memorials of important events? Some would argue that there could be no nation-state without people and events to celebrate. What would a national identity be without monuments?