Special Issue: Museums and Monuments: Memorials of Violent Pasts in Urban Spaces (original) (raw)
Related papers
Introduction: Museums and Monuments: Memorials of Violent Pasts in Urban Spaces
History and Memory, 2020
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2020
Chap. in Historical Dialogue and the Prevention of Mass Atrocities, Eds. Elazar Barkan, Constantin Goschler, and James Waller. Routledge, 2020. Abstract: Together with truth commissions, trials, and reparations, museums and memorials have emerged as important tools for confronting the past and “coming to terms with” traumatic histories and episodes of mass atrocity. These sites typically combine traditional museology frameworks and mission statements with activist agendas and ethical imperatives (e.g., Never again!), yet relatively little is known about their efficacy, and the discursive underpinnings of their presentations are, for the most part, under-theorized. This essay takes up four museums/memorials in order to assess their potential as sites for historical dialogue and atrocity prevention: the 9/11 Memorial and Museum (USA), the District Six Museum (South Africa), the Liberation War Museum (Bangladesh); and the Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice (USA). Although there are important differences to consider within this small sampling, each case is framed here by the same overarching questions: How do representations of large-scale violence at these sites help or hinder historical dialogue and the promotion of democracy and human rights? And also, which kinds of representations and narratives are most likely to contribute positively to the atrocity prevention program, which is the focus of this volume? This essay argues that museums and memorials, despite certain limitations, can play a helpful role in shaping how rival groups view one another and how responsibility for past violence is apportioned, thereby facilitating the processes of reconciliation that can ameliorate conflict and stem violence.
In Whose Honor? On Monuments, Public Spaces, Historical Narratives, and Memory
Museum Anthropology, 2018
Recent organized protests have incurred outrage over monuments commemorating Confederate military leaders; in some cities, such as Baltimore, statues of Confederate military leaders have been removed overnight. In this context of charged public discourse, we ask: Does the immediate removal of these statues and monuments truly change the representation of histories and heritage? This expanded commentary, emanating from a Late‐Breaking Roundtable Session at the American Anthropological Association's 2017 annual meeting, is a discussion of the nuances and more obvious manipulations of power exercised through public spaces, representations, place names, and the production of historical narratives embedded in material forms of cultural memory. Research in the field of museum anthropology offers analysis pertinent to this subject, as well as intentioned practices to support communities addressing the violences, disparities, and racisms embedded in American history, and its material forms of cultural memory. In organizing the session, we suggested participants might explore the significance of “dissonant” or “negative” heritage; the narratives, counternarratives, and contestations highlighted in these controversies; or offer comparative perspectives from contexts other than the United States.
Places of Public Memory: The Rhetoric of Museums and Memorials
University of Alabama Press, 2010
Though we live in a time when memory seems to be losing its hold on communities, memory remains central to personal, communal, and national identities. And although popular and public discourses from speeches to films invite a shared sense of the past, official sites of memory such as memorials, museums, and battlefields embody unique rhetorical principles. Places of Public Memory: The Rhetoric of Museums and Memorials is a sustained and rigorous consideration of the intersections of memory, place, and rhetoric. From the mnemonic systems inscribed upon ancient architecture to the roadside accident memorials that line America’s highways, memory and place have always been deeply interconnected. This book investigates the intersections of memory and place through nine original essays written by leading memory studies scholars from the fields of rhetoric, media studies, organizational communication, history, performance studies, and English. The essays address, among other subjects, the rhetorical strategies of those vying for competing visions of a 9/11 memorial at New York City’s Ground Zero; rhetorics of resistance embedded in the plans for an expansion of the National Civil Rights Museum; representations of nuclear energy—both as power source and weapon—in Cold War and post–Cold War museums; and tours and tourism as acts of performance. By focusing on “official” places of memory, the collection causes readers to reflect on how nations and local communities remember history and on how some voices and views are legitimated and others are minimized or erased. Reviews: “This is a very interesting and diverse set of essays in the field of public history, which focuses our attention on fascinating case studies that have not been widely examined before. That alone makes this collection of interest to a broad readership.” —Journal of American History “A timely and welcome addition to the literature on memory studies, Places of Public Memory seeks to marry memory studies with the methodology of the rhetorician. This exceptional book should be widely read by cultural historians, rhetoricians, students of public memory, designers of museums and public displays.” —Journal of Popular Culture “Places of Public Memory, makes a compelling argument that rhetorical scholarship on public memory has yet to attend sufficiently to memory's material manifestations and the ways in which they shape affective experience. . . . Dickinson, Blair, and Ott offer an exhaustive literature review-useful to anyone interested in the study of public memory-to show that attention to the materiality of remembrance and the ways such materiality structures affective experience will significantly expand our current understanding of the rhetoric of public memory. . . . The eight essays comprising this volume constitute a real contribution to the study of rhetoric and public memory.” —Rhetoric & Public Affairs
Journal for the Study of Education and Development
This paper explores the ways in which memorial museums open opportunities for a critical understanding of violent pasts. We build off the concept of 'popular uses of the past' to discuss the importance of including ethical reflection in history education. Next, we present an original rendering of the ways in which violence is often normalized in school history textbooks and derive analytical categories that are used to examine if and how historical narratives in memorial museums normalize or interrogate violence. We analyse the narratives of the Exile Memorial Museum in La Jonquera (Spain) and the International Slavery Museum in Liverpool (England) to shed light on the ways the exhibits invite ethical reflection. In the last section we discuss how schools may benefit from incorporating resources like museum exhibits that open up rather than minimize discussions of historical violence and its relation to the present and future.
Curating Difficult Knowledge: Violent Pasts in Public Places
2011
List of Illustrations List of Maps Acknowledgements Notes on Contributors Introduction: Witnesses to Witnessing E.Lehrer & C.E.Milton PART I: BEARING WITNESS BETWEEN MUSEUMS AND COMMUNITIES 'We were so far away': Exhibiting Inuit Oral Histories of Residential Schools H.Igloliorte The Past is a Dangerous Place: the Museum as a Safe Haven V.Szekeres Teaching Tolerance through Objects of Hatred: The Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia as 'Counter-Museum' M.E.Patterson Politics of the Past: Remembering the Rwandan Genocide at the Kigali Memorial Center A.Sodaro PART II: VISUALIZING THE PAST Living Historically through Photographs in Post-Apartheid South Africa: Reflections on Kliptown Museum, Soweto D.Newbury Showing and Telling: Photography Exhibitions in Israeli Discourses of Dissent T.Katriel Visualizing Apartheid: Re-framing Truth and Reconciliation through Contemporary South African Art E.Mosely PART III: MATERIALITY AND MEMORIAL CHALLENGES Points of No Return: Cu...