Kristin Hass at Harvard Book Store

Harvard Book Store welcomes KRISTIN HASS—Professor in the Department of American Culture at the University of Michigan and Associate Director of Imagining America: Artists and Scholars in Public Life—for a discussion of her new book Blunt Instruments: Recognizing Racist Cultural Infrastructure in Memorials, Museums, and Patriotic Practice. She will be joined in conversation by TIYA MILES—author and director of the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History at Harvard University.

A Return to In-Person Events

Harvard Book Store is excited to be back to in-person programming. To ensure the safety and comfort of everyone in attendance, the following Covid-19 safety protocols will be in place at all of our Harvard Book Store events until further notice:

• Face coverings are required of all staff and attendees when inside the store. Masks must snugly cover nose and mouth.

About Blunt Instruments

Cultural infrastructure has been designed to maintain structures of inequality, and while it doesn’t seem to be explicitly about race, it often is. Blunt Instruments helps readers identify, contextualize, and name elements of our everyday landscapes and cultural practices that are designed to seem benign or natural but which, in fact, work tirelessly to tell us vital stories about who we are, how we came to be, and who belongs.

Examining landmark moments such as the erection of the first American museum and Colin Kaepernick’s kneeling pledge of allegiance, historian Kristin Hass explores the complicated histories of sites of cultural infrastructure, such as:

· the American Museum of Natural History

· the Bridge to Freedom in Selma

· the Washington Monument

· Mount Auburn Cemetery

· Kehinde Wiley’s 2019 sculpture Rumors of War

· the Victory Highway

· the Alamo Cenotaph

With sharp analysis and a broad lens, Hass makes the undeniable case that understanding what cultural infrastructure is, and the deep and broad impact that it has, is essential to understanding how structures of inequity are maintained and how they might be dismantled.

Praise for Blunt Instruments

"A fascinating, urgent, eye-opening, and necessary read, offering a vision for a nation where all can thrive." —Mark Clague, author of O Say Can You Hear? A Cultural Biography of “The Star-Spangled Banner”

"Breaks down the hidden meanings behind monuments, museums, and patriotic traditions, revealing not only that no act of memorialization can ever be neutral but also that the claim of neutrality is itself a weapon of cultural combat." —Tiya Miles, author of All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley’s Sack, a Black Family Keepsake

"For anyone and everyone interested in creating a more socially just world, this is essential reading!" —Dr. Lisa Yun Lee, executive director, National Public Housing Museum