Icons and Monuments developed from an examination into the question of how the Good Life is enshrined in public art and commemorative monuments. This question framed a course I was teaching that delved into the fraught history regarding Confederate Monuments, brought to national attention by the White Nationalists attack in Charlottesville, the visit of Richard Spencer to the campus where I teach, and the removal of a confederate monument from the local county courthouse. This research resonates with my long interest in how images are used to embedded meaning in culture. With over seven hundred monuments still standing in public spaces I have been reflecting on how monuments can become vehicles for transformation rather than agents of oppression and tyranny.