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Private Memories and Public Memorials: The Rhetoric of Memorials

Private Memories and Public Memorials: The Rhetoric of Memorials

Publié le par Thomas Parisot (Source : CFP)

Deadlines: 31 July 2001 (abstracts), 07 January 2002 (completed manuscripts)

The purpose of this collection (under contract with Greenwood Publishing, Praeger imprint), tentatively entitled "Private Memories and Public Memorials: The Rhetoric of Memorials", is to cast a critical eye at memorials of national significance, both established ones and ones still in some phase of development, in order to demonstrate how they work to achieve persuasive effect in their audiences.

The desire for public remembrance and memorialization of the dead is not uncommon in most cultures. Anthropologists quite often study grief and memorial practices for telling signs of a culture's belief system. In our own culture, funerals, complete with their flag-waving processionals to grave sites are outward signs of memorialization. So, too, are the monuments that dot the cemetery landscape, from stone markers of various sizes engraved with information about the dead to even the small ground plaques and simple vase markers of lawn cemeteries-all serve as a public memorial to a personal loss. On a grander scale are remembrance services and public memorials to heroes, such as the Vietnam War Memorial or the new Korean War Memorial; to public figures, such as the national monuments to Washington and Lincoln; or victims grouped together by some commonality, such as a tragic end, as with the memorial at Arlington National Cemetery to the astronauts from the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster, or the AIDS quilt project that travels around the country to memorialize victims of AIDS. Common to all of these memorials, no matter their size, is the desire to make a statement-and to possibly make meaning of a loss.

Those "statements" will be the subject of this collection-what do memorials mean, how do they make their meaning, and what do memorials say about our culture. Essays (previously unpublished) may focus on one memorial in particular, one aspect of several memorials, or a trend in memorials in general. The thread that will bind this collection together is that all the essays will, in some way, explore the rhetorical nature of memorials.

Submit 250-500 word abstracts only (please include name, institutional affiliation, preferred email and postal addresses, and, if available, a fax number) via email (preferred) by 31 July 2001, to which I will respond via email by 4 September 2001. Completed manuscripts (approximately 5,000-7,000 words, MLA format) will be due on 7 January 2002. (Manuscripts should be mailed to the address below.)

Billie J. Jones, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Humanities and Writing
English Program Coordinator
Penn State Capital College
Office: 570-385-6195
E-mail: bjj6@psu.edu
Home page: http://www.personal.psu.edu/bjj6