Memorials to Shattered Myths: Vietnam to 9/11

ISBN-13: 9780190248390 / Angielski / Twarda / 2016 / 274 str.

Harriet Senie

Opis

Memorials to Shattered Myths: Vietnam to 9/11 traces the evolution and consequences of a new hybrid paradigm, which grants a heroic status to victims of national tragedies, and by extension to their families, thereby creating a class of privileged participants in the permanent memorial process. Harriet F. Senie suggests that instead the victims' families be able to determine the nature of an interim memorial, one that addresses their needs in the critical time between the murder of their loved ones and the completion of the permanent memorial. She also observes that the memorials discussed herein are inadvertently based on strategies of diversion and denial that direct our attention away from actual events, and reframe tragedy as secular or religious triumph. In doing so, they camouflage history, and seen as an aggregate, they define a nation of victims, exactly the concept they and their accompanying celebratory narratives were apparently created to obscure.

Recenzje

In this landmark exploration of public art, politics, and cultural landscape, Senieconsiders how the concept of "national memorial" has shifted from recognition of political/military leaders and victories in war to visualization of collective identity that recognizes victims, their families, and a shared sense of loss ... Supplemented by ample notes and black-and-white images, this articulate, thorough analysis of memorials and national identity is required reading for those interested in public art, public history, memorials, memory studies, and other related fields in the fine arts, liberal arts, and humanities ... Summing Up: Essential.

O autorze

Harriet F. Senie is Director of the M.A. Program in Art History and Art Museum Studies at City College, CUNY, and also teaches at the CUNY Graduate Center. She is the author of several books and numerous articles on public art, and is co-founder of the international organization Public Art Dialogue and co-editor of its journal, Public Art Dialogue.