Who is that dude on the square? You know the one…made out of bronze, taking a slight step forward, kinda green. If you know what I’m talking about but you don’t know who he is…why is there a monument dedicated to him?
Hilary Morgan Leathem is a Doctoral Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Chicago. She has roots in Madison and like material culture contributor gianofer fields, she has often passed by a particular monument located on the grounds of the State Capitol. But neither of them knows who he is or why he’s there.
This edition of Radio Chipstone was recorded during the Winter of 2019. Not exactly the best time to be wandering around our State Capitol playing Who’s Who. While they think they know who he is, fields convinces Leathem to leave the warmth of the atrium across the street from the Capitol and brave the Polar Vortex to verify the identity of the man on the square.
About the Host:
gianofer (JON nah fer) fields is an Art Historian and Material Culture contributor and curates the Radio Chipstone series. The project is hosted by the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and funded by the Chipstone Foundation; a decorative arts foundation whose mission is preserving and interpreting their collection, as well as stimulating research and education in the decorative arts.
About the Guest:
Hilary Morgan Leathem is a PhD candidate in Sociocultural Anthropology at the University of Chicago and a recent exchange fellow at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris. She has conducted research in Oaxaca, Mexico since 2008 (first as an archaeologist), and recently returned from a year of fieldwork in Mitla and Oaxaca City as a 2017-2018 Fulbright-Hays scholar. Her dissertation, “Heritage Dispossessed: Haunting, Theft, and the Making of Monumental Heritage in Oaxaca, Mexico,” traces the conceptual formation and mobilization of heritage in Oaxaca while also attending to the moral and affective valences of heritage practices.
Image: State Capitol in Madison. Photograph by Ensign Beedrill, Flickr: Rough Tough, Real Stuff.
This segment comes from the Radio Chipstone Archives on WUWM Milwaukee Public Radio. See here.
