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Memory and Postwar MemorialsMnemonic Objects: Forensic and Rhetorical Practices in Memorial Culture

Memory and Postwar Memorials: Mnemonic Objects: Forensic and Rhetorical Practices in Memorial... [Some of the best-known elements of memory culture (and some of the most infamous) are the objects—hair and shoes at Auschwitz, clocks and watches stopped at the time of the blast at Hiroshima (8:15) and Nagasaki (11:02), bones in Rwanda and Cambodia. We have a special relationship with objects in that they inhabit three-dimensional space with us. Even when we are not allowed to touch them, we experience them with a kind of sympathetic kinesthesia. We translate data that we take in with our eyes into imagined touch. We often use objects as mnemonic devices. We trust that they will serve as place holders for things we want to recall and we believe that they have the capacity to call up memories in others. Objects are familiar to us and they are our familiars, in the sense of belonging to our households. They are on close terms with us. Even when they are representatives of violence, we regard objects with presumption because they are lodged in the most ordinary nooks and crannies of our lives. This chapter explores the kinds of objects that can be found at memorial sites, objects that are deliberately deployed toward the project of making memory. It relies on my own field work in 21 countries, with examples from locations in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North and South America that commemorate a wide range of violent histories: genocide, slavery, apartheid, nuclear war, torture, and state-sanctioned “disappearance.”] http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png

Memory and Postwar MemorialsMnemonic Objects: Forensic and Rhetorical Practices in Memorial Culture

Part of the Studies in European Culture and History Book Series
Editors: Silberman, Marc; Vatan, Florence
Clark, Laurie Beth
Memory and Postwar Memorials — Oct 29, 2015
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18 pages

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References (3)

Publisher
Palgrave Macmillan US
Copyright
© Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Nature America Inc. 2013
ISBN
978-1-349-46574-3
Pages
155 –173
DOI
10.1057/9781137343529_9
Publisher site
See Chapter on Publisher Site

Abstract

[Some of the best-known elements of memory culture (and some of the most infamous) are the objects—hair and shoes at Auschwitz, clocks and watches stopped at the time of the blast at Hiroshima (8:15) and Nagasaki (11:02), bones in Rwanda and Cambodia. We have a special relationship with objects in that they inhabit three-dimensional space with us. Even when we are not allowed to touch them, we experience them with a kind of sympathetic kinesthesia. We translate data that we take in with our eyes into imagined touch. We often use objects as mnemonic devices. We trust that they will serve as place holders for things we want to recall and we believe that they have the capacity to call up memories in others. Objects are familiar to us and they are our familiars, in the sense of belonging to our households. They are on close terms with us. Even when they are representatives of violence, we regard objects with presumption because they are lodged in the most ordinary nooks and crannies of our lives. This chapter explores the kinds of objects that can be found at memorial sites, objects that are deliberately deployed toward the project of making memory. It relies on my own field work in 21 countries, with examples from locations in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North and South America that commemorate a wide range of violent histories: genocide, slavery, apartheid, nuclear war, torture, and state-sanctioned “disappearance.”]

Published: Oct 29, 2015

Keywords: Human Remains; Khmer Rouge; Memorial Culture; Killing Field; Glass Case

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