"Let Them Place My Name Upon It": Monuments and History-Telling from the Ancient Near East to Haynes House

Why do we carve names into stones, statues, and buildings? How do those names, and the structures or objects bearing them, affect the lives of the people living among the monuments? Ancient Near Eastern memorial inscriptions often make explicit demands of the people and gods who view them: we’ll consider these demands, and the discussions of memorial statues in the Hebrew Bible and other ancient literature, in light of our own contemporary conversations about naming (and renaming) buildings and monuments in public spaces.

Emily Branton is a visiting instructor in Religion and Jewish Studies at Mount Holyoke College. She graduated from Smith College in 2014, and completed an MA in Religion at the Divinity School at the University of Chicago. She is currently completing a PhD in Hebrew Bible at UNC-Chapel Hill. 

Sponsored by the Smith College Religion Department Wilson-Rikert Memorial Fund, Ancient Studies Program, Jewish Studies Program, Center for Religious and Spiritual Life and Lecture Committee.