Conclusion: Reading the Monument

ation as Sovereign and Power utilizes the vehicle of whiteness to assert power. The three pairs of eyes remain pinned on the pedestrian as they move through space, reproachful as they grip their weapons or symbols of superiority. The monument works in tandem with the armed marshals guarding the Federal Building’s entrance to regulate movement: there is an overwhelming threat of judgment, as well as its resulting punishment, if one were to act disobediently. It is this omniscient threat of violence through fixing symbols of institutional power onto the landscape that Foucault defines as the panopticon, and that I find the most apt to describe this monument

However, it is the monument’s whiteness that allows it to function as it does. If the monument were to accurately represent the community that most often sees it (the low-income visitors of the Kennedy Plaza bus station across the street, many of whom are people of color) it would be an amalgamation of genders, races, and identities. However, it does not aim to do so. Instead, it is a proud member of the Beaux-Arts canon, as well as continues the legacy of romanticizing and white-washing Ancient Greek culture. The monument enforces white imaginations of republicanism and ‘civilization’ onto stolen Narragansett land, and to uphold this imagination it must control those who interact with it. And thus, the institution finds use in the panopticon.

Works Cited

1. Michel Foucault “Panopticism” in Discipline & Punish: The Birth of the Prison.
   (Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1975), 3.
2. “Beaux-Arts.” Architecture & Design Dictionary | Chicago Architecture Center. Chicago Architecture Center. Accessed November 23, 2022. https://www.architecture.org/learn/resources/architecture-dictionary/entry/beaux-arts/.
3. David Brian, “Discipline & Style: The Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the social production of an American architecture.” in Theory and Society 18 (Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989), 807.
4. Nelly Shafil Ramzy “Between the École Des Beaux-Arts and the Bauhaus: Modern
   Architecture as an Outcome of the Enlightenment Philosophy.” in Ain Shams Journal of Architectural Engineering, Vol. 2, 55-65. (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publisher, 2010), 55.
5. “5 Enlightenment and the Classics.” The Enlightenment. The Open University, 1999.
   https://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history-art/the-enlightenment/content-section-5. Accessed November 24, 2022.
6. David Brian, “Discipline & Style: The Ecole des Beaux-Arts and the social production of an American architecture.” in Theory and Society 18 (Netherlands: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989), 810.
7. “Figures of Justice.” Office of the Curator. Supreme Court of the United States, 2003. All images not taken by me are from this site. https://www.supremecourt.gov/about/figuresofjustice.pdf. Accessed November 23, 2022.
8. Marina Warner. Monuments and Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form. (Berkley: University of California Press, 2001), 160.
9. Ibid., 160.
10. Possley et al.. “Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States 2022.” In the National Registry of Exonerations, September 2022, ed. Samuel R. Gross and Barbara O’Brien. (Michigan: University of Michigan Press, 2022), 3.
11. Marina Warner. Monuments and Maidens: The Allegory of the Female Form. (Berkley: University of California Press, 2001), 149.
12. Ibid., 149-150.
13. “The Lictor's Fasces.” elysee.fr. cocorico, November 20, 2012.
14. Antony J. Marshall. “Symbols and Showmanship in Roman Public Life: The Fasces.” in Phoenix, Summer Vol. 38, No. 2, 130. (Ontario: Classical Association of Canada, 1984).
15. Laura Bagby “Here's What the Legal Profession Looks like in 2022.” 2Civility. 2Civility. August 18, 2022. https://www.2civility.org/aba-profile-of-the-legal-profession-heres-what-the-legal-profession-looks-like-in-2022/.