Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/Temple University/The Destruction of Images (Spring 2024)

This course explores the phenomenon of iconoclasm throughout history as a series of case studies exploring various political, religious, and artistic-driven image destruction. The majority of the class will consider Byzantine iconoclasm in the eighth and ninth centuries, while also examining damnatio memoriae in ancient Rome; Beeldenstorm in sixteenth-century Europe; destruction of kingly imagery during the French Revolution; Buddhist ritual dissolution of sand mandalas; early Islamic attitudes to images; and 20th-century artistic interventions. These historical examples will be framed with the context of contemporary debates, especially the recent toppling of confederate monuments in the United States. Students will be revising (or, in a few cases, possibly creating) existing Wikipedia entries on works of art or architecture that have undergone, or reference, some form of iconoclasm.