Memory and the Impact of Political Transformation in Public Space , livre ebook
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2004
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337
pages
English
Ebooks
2004
Obtenez un accès à la bibliothèque pour le consulter en ligne En savoir plus
Publié par
Date de parution
30 novembre 2004
EAN13
9780822386346
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
2 Mo
Memory and the Impact of Political Transformation in Public Space explores the effects of major upheavals-wars, decolonization, and other social and economic changes-on the ways in which public histories are presented around the world. Examining issues related to public memory in twelve countries, the histories collected here cut across political, cultural, and geographic divisions. At the same time, by revealing recurring themes and concerns, they show how basic issues of history and memory transcend specific sites and moments in time. A number of the essays look at contests over public memory following two major political transformations: the wave of liberation from colonial rule in much of Africa, Asia, and Central and South America during the second half of the twentieth century and the reorganization of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet bloc beginning in the late 1980s.This collection expands the scope of what is considered public history by pointing to silences and absences that are as telling as museums and memorials. Contributors remind us that for every monument that is erected, others-including one celebrating Sri Lanka's independence and another honoring the Unknown Russian Soldier of World War II-remain on the drawing board. While some sites seem woefully underserved by a lack of public memorials-as do post-Pinochet Chile and post-civil war El Salvador-others run the risk of diluting meaning through overexposure, as may be happening with Israel's Masada. Essayists examine public history as it is conveyed not only in marble and stone but also through cityscapes and performances such as popular songs and parades.ContributorsJames CarterJohn CzaplickaKanishka GoonewardenaLisa Maya KnauerAnna KrylovaTeresa MeadeBill NassonMary NolanCynthia PacesAndrew RossDaniel SeltzT. M. ScruggsIrina Carlota SilberDaniel J. WalkowitzYael Zerubavel
Voir
Publié par
Date de parution
30 novembre 2004
EAN13
9780822386346
Langue
English
Poids de l'ouvrage
2 Mo
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MEMORY AND THE IMPACT OF POLITICAL
TRANSFORMATION IN PUBLIC SPACE
A book in the series
RADICAL PERSPECTIVES
ARadical History Reviewbook series
Series editors:Daniel J. Walkowitz, New York University
Barbara Weinstein, University of Maryland at College Park
M EM O RY A N D T H E IM PAC T O F P O LIT ICA L T R A N SFO R M AT IO N
IN P U B LIC SPAC EEdited by Daniel J. Walkowitz and Lisa Maya Knauer n
Duke University Press2004Durham and London n n
∫2004 Duke University Press All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper$ Designed by Amy Ruth Buchanan Typeset in Dante by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data appear on the last printed page of this book.
Earlier versions of the following articles were previously published and are reprinted with permission of the publisher, Duke University Press.
Andrew Ross, ‘‘Wallace’s Monument and the Resumption of Scotland,’’Social Text65 (winter 2000).
Cynthia Paces, ‘‘The Fall and Rise of Prague’s Marian Column,’’Radical History Review79 (winter 2001).
Kanishka Goonewardena, ‘‘Aborted Identity: The Commission and Omission of a Monument to the Nation, Sri Lanka, circa 1989,’’Radical History Review82 (winter 2002).
Mary Nolan, ‘‘The Politics of Memory in the Bonn and Berlin Republics,’’Radical History Review81 (fall 2001).
Teresa Meade, ‘‘Holding the Junta Accountable: Chile’s ‘Sitios de Memoria’ and the History of Torture, Disappearance, and Death,’’Radical History Review79 (winter 2000).
Bill Nasson, ‘‘Commemorating the Anglo-Boer War in Post-apartheid South Africa,’’Radical History Review78 (fall 2000).
CONTENTS
About the Series, vii
IntroductionLisa Maya Knauer and Daniel J. Walkowitz,1 n
MONUMENTS: BUILT AND UNBUILT
19
Wallace’s Monument and the Resumption of ScotlandAndrew Ross,21 n
The Fall and Rise of Prague’s Marian ColumnCynthia Paces,47 n
Aborted Identity: The Commission and Omission of a Monument to the Nation, Sri Lanka, circa 1989Kanishka Goonewardena,65 n
Dancing on the Graves of the Dead: Building a World War II Memorial in Post-Soviet RussiaAnna Krylova,83 n
MUSEUMS103
The Politics of Memory in the Bonn and Berlin RepublicsMary Nolan,105 n
Remembering the War and the Atomic Bombs: New Museums, New ApproachesDaniel Seltz,127 n
CITYSCAPES147
Touring Harbin’s PastsJames Carter,149 n
The Palace Ruins and Putting the Lithuanian Nation into Place: Historical Stagings in VilniusJohn Czaplicka,167 n
MEMORY SITES: MARKED AND UNMARKED
189
Holding the Junta Accountable: Chile’s ‘‘Sitios de Memoria’’ and the History of Torture, Disappearance, and DeathTeresa Meade,191 n
vi
Contents
Commemorating the Past in Postwar El SalvadorIrina Carlota Silber,211 n
The Politics of Remembrance and the Consumption of Space: Masada in Israeli MemoryYael Zerubavel,233 n
PERFORMATIVE COMMEMORATIONS
253
Music, Memory, and the Politics of Erasure in NicaraguaT. M. Scruggs,255 n
Commemorating the Anglo-Boer War in Postapartheid South Africa n Bill Nasson,277
Bibliography, 295
Discography, 315
Notes on Contributors, 317
Index, 321
ABOUT THE SERIES
History, as radical historians have long observed, cannot be severed from authorial subjectivity, indeed from politics. Political concerns animate the questions we ask, the subjects on which we write. For more than thirty years theRadical History Reviewhas led in nurturing and advancing politi-cally engaged historical research. Radical Perspectives seeks to further the journal’s mission: any author wishing to be in the series makes a self-conscious decision to associate her or his work with a radical perspective. To be sure, many of us are currently struggling with what it means to be a radical historian in the early twenty-first century, and this series is intended to provide some signposts for what we would judge to be radical history. It will o√er innovative ways of telling stories from multiple perspectives: comparative, transnational, and global histories that transcend conven-tional boundaries of region and nation; works that elaborate on the im-plications of the postcolonial move to ‘‘provincialize Europe’’; studies of the public in and of the past, including those that consider the com-modification of the past; histories that explore the intersection of identities such as gender, race, class, and sexuality, with an eye to their political im-plications and complications. Above all, this series seeks to create an im-portant intellectual space and discursive community to explore the very issue of what constitutes radical history. Within this context some of the books published in the series may privilege alternative and oppositional political cultures, but all will be concerned with the way power is con-stituted, contested, used, and abused. Memory and the Impact of Political Transformation in Public Spaceis the first of two planned volumes on public history with origins in theRadical History Review. Both of these collections, by internationalizing issues rec-ognizable to historians in the United States, familiarize the seemingly foreign from a radical perspective and expand the far-too-often U.S.-centric field of public history. A future volume will examine race and empire in
viii
About the Series
national narratives; the essays in the present volume, each a lively window on to public spaces around the globe—from Sri Lanka and Harbin, China, to South Africa and Scotland—demonstrate how historical interpretations of public sites have shifted with the rise and fall of political regimes and changing political currents all over the world. Nor is ‘‘revisionism’’ any-thing new; these essays trace reinterpretations as far back in time as the medieval and early modern eras. Moreover, historians play a supporting role at best in these struggles; rather, what we see time and again is the central role of politicians and a politically charged citizenry, with histor-ically specific interests, constraining curators, architects, and those with a dissenting view of the past. The sites of these contests, however, represent a radical expansion of the sphere of public history and the arenas in which the past is contested. Museums and monuments are well known sites for historical presentation. However, in accounts of unbuilt monuments or repressed songs in Nicaragua, this collection reminds us that if History is the winners’ story, then the radical historian exploring the politics of space needs to look for absence and listen to silence.
INTRODUCTION
Lisa Maya Knauer and Daniel J. Walkowitz
History and memory have become highly contentious public issues in recent years, and political events place these struggles over historical inter-pretations in high relief. As we assembled the manuscript for this book, the World Trade Center was attacked. As a monument, the World Trade Center lent itself to markedly di√erent readings in its life and death. Some saw the towers as arrogant and vulgar representations of capitalist greed and insolence. Architectural critics derided their massiveness, blandness, and sheer ugliness. Others saw them as more benign symbols of the global city. The towers’ status as part of U.S. and global public history, and of millions of people’s private and collective memories, was evidenced in the moments following the attacks and reinforced in the succeeding months. From the very first, History and Memory were referenced continuously by President Bush and then-mayor Guiliani and by scores of others. Politicians and media pundits incorporated a particular rendering of U.S. (and global) history into a new national narrative rolled out to legitimate the ‘‘war on terrorism.’’ These narratives invoked the Twin Towers as symbols of na-∞ tional unity. But simultaneously we saw alternative, often oppositional, histories and memories articulated and enacted—some of them literally before our eyes. Even as the towers collapsed, thousands of ordinary New Yorkers of all colors, classes, and religions went out into the public spaces of the city—streets, subway stations, parks—to bear witness and seek soli-darity but also to search for their own meanings. These spaces also became intensely social, animated by an uninterrupted flow of people coming to ≤ mourn, debate, and protest. How public space was used became a matter of urgent concern as city and federal authorities, invoking national security, tried to limit access to certain public spaces in the city and restrict their uses. These tensions between what is now labeled ‘‘homeland security’’ and the ‘‘right to the
