Symposium
Memorial Mania
Negotiating Social and Political Strategies of Memory
What way is it demanded of us that we remember? Can monuments serve our collective memory? Ten years after 9/11, and six years after the opening of the Holocaust Memorial Berlin, this symposium will contemplate the memorial as a form of memory culture and as a site of clashing political strategies.
Does a memorial heed our changing perceptions of “the event” over time, or does it dull our collective recollection? Should a memorial urge catharsis or categorically avoid normative reactions? Is a memorial meant to instantiate our interpretation of history or to encourage meditations on it? When we encounter a memorial, what are we being asked to remember? How and by whom are the politics of representation invoked? Panels comprised of historians, artists, journalists, writers, and politicians will discuss the different aspects and forms of historical commemoration.
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