Waubonsee Community College

Memorials to shattered myths, Vietnam to 9/11, Harriet F. Senie

eng

Includes bibliographical references and index

illustrationsmaps

index present

non fiction

Memorials to shattered myths

bibliography

907061019

Harriet F. Senie

Vietnam to 9/11

Although radically different, the Vietnam War, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine High School shootings, and the attacks of 9/11 all shattered myths of national identity. Vietnam was a war the United States didn't win; Oklahoma City revealed domestic terrorism in the heartland; Columbine debunked legends of high school as an idyllic time; and 9/11 demonstrated U.S. vulnerability to international terrorism"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." -- Publisher's description

Introduction -- The Vietnam Veterans Memorial : a symbolic cemetery on the National Mall -- Immediate memorials : mourning in protest -- Oklahoma City : reframing tragedy as triumph -- Columbine : the power of denial -- Commemorating 9/11 : from the Tribute in light to Reflecting absence -- Conclusion