Danto's discussion of site‐related and site‐specific art opens up perspectives on both his conception of the ethics and politics of public art and on his ultimately idealistic ontology of art. Danto's analysis of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial involves an important distinction between monuments and memorials that is highly relevant to current controversies, like those about Confederate statues. His differing responses to two site‐related public art works by Richard Serra exhibit a nuanced sensibility to the taste of the public audience (...) and the aesthetics of genius loci. Danto's enthusiastic account of several site‐specific works involving minimal interventions on the ground (some of which remained in the planning stage) disclose his inclination to reduce art to its idea, prescinding from its material presence. (shrink)

As self-conscious curators and critics of moral history, the early Confucians are relevant to the contemporary debate over the fate of memorials dedicated to morally flawed individuals. They provide us with a pragmatic justification that is distinct from those utilized in the current debate, and in many respects superior to the alternatives. In addition to supplying this curative philosophic resource, the early Confucian practices of ancestral memorialization suggest preventative measures we might adopt to minimize the chances of establishing divisive (...) and oppressive memorials in the future. (shrink)

All civilian, government-sponsored spacecraft, despite ostensibly having the primary purpose of scientific data-collection, are, within the advanced cultures that produce them, primarily symbolic objects, created by the people as a means of indicating, both to themselves and to all the world, what is in their hearts: what they value. These craft are a statement that we value learning, exploration, adventure, difficult endeavors, teamwork, precision, self-discipline, and intelligence. All such spacecraft are, fundamentally, semiotic objects. The fact that they collect data, although (...) proffered as their primary function, is in fact secondary. In this paper I propose a thought-experiment, involving consideration of a spacecraft expressly intended for a symbolic, semiotic, psychological purpose: a kind of interstellar library, a Noah's Ark of Documents, the "Milky Way Messenger." By taking an idea that was originally merely a concept to be featured in a science-fiction story and exploring whether it might be feasible to accomplish it in the real world, the paper is intended to trigger thought and discussion concerning the conscious creation of such objects. The paper concludes with suggestions concerning the semiotic psychological function of certain government programs. (shrink)

This collection of newly published essays examines our relationship to physical objects that invoke, commemorate, and honor the past. The recent destruction of cultural heritage in war and controversies over Civil War monuments in the US have foregrounded the importance of artifacts that embody history. The book invites us to ask: How do memorials convey their meanings? What is our responsibility for the preservation or reconstruction of historically significant structures? How should we respond when the public display of a (...) monument divides a community? This anthology includes coverage of the destruction of Palmyra and the Bamiyan Buddhas, the loss of cultural heritage through war and natural disasters, the explosive controversies surrounding Confederate-era monuments, and the decay of industry in the U.S. Rust Belt. The authors consider issues of preservation and reconstruction, the nature of ruins, the aesthetic and ethical values of memorials, and the relationship of cultural memory to material artifacts that remain from the past. Written by a leading group of philosophers, art historians, and archeologists, the 23 chapters cover monuments and memorials from Dubai to Detroit, from the instant destruction of Hiroshima to the gradual sinking of Venice. (shrink)

P. J. Rhodes: Preface Polly Low and Graham Oliver: Comparing Cultures of Commemoration in Ancient and Modern Societies Polly Low: The Monuments ot the War Dead in Classical Athens: Forms, Contexts, Meanings Alison Cooley: Commemorating the War Dead of the Roman World Angelos Chaniotis: The Ritualised Commemoration of War in the Hellenistic City: Memory, Identity, Emotion Avner Ben-Amos: Two Neo-Classical Monuments in Modern France: The Pantheon and Arc de Triomphe Graham Oliver: Naming the Dead, Writing the Individual: Classical Traditions and (...) Commemorative Practices in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries Stefan Goebel: Cultural Memory and the Great War: Medievalism and Classicism in British and German War Memorials Lawrence A. Tritle: Monument to Defeat: the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in American Culture and Society. (shrink)

This collection of newly published essays examines our relationship to physical objects that invoke, commemorate, and honor the past. The recent destruction of cultural heritage in war and controversies over Civil War monuments in the US have foregrounded the importance of artifacts that embody history. The book invites us to ask: How do memorials convey their meanings? What is our responsibility for the preservation or reconstruction of historically significant structures? How should we respond when the public display of a (...) monument divides a community? This anthology includes coverage of the destruction of Palmyra and the Bamiyan Buddhas, the loss of cultural heritage through war and natural disasters, the explosive controversies surrounding Confederate-era monuments, and the decay of industry in the U.S. Rust Belt. The authors consider issues of preservation and reconstruction, the nature of ruins, the aesthetic and ethical values of memorials, and the relationship of cultural memory to material artifacts that remain from the past. Written by a leading group of philosophers, art historians, and archeologists, the 23 chapters cover monuments and memorials from Dubai to Detroit, from the instant destruction of Hiroshima to the gradual sinking of Venice. (shrink)

As self-conscious curators and critics of moral history, the early Confucians are relevant to the contemporary debate over the fate of memorials dedicated to morally flawed individuals. They provide us with a pragmatic justification that is distinct from those utilized in the current debate, and in many respects superior to the alternatives. In addition to supplying this curative philosophic resource, the early Confucian practices of ancestral memorialization suggest preventative measures we might adopt to minimize the chances of establishing divisive (...) and oppressive memorials in the future. (shrink)

This paper presents a comprehensive analysis of the significance and meanings of faces within monuments and memorials. The presence of faces in monuments and memorials transcends cultures and spans throughout history. Faces serve as vital components of public statues, conveying the emotions of depicted characters and establishing communicative connections with observers. Moreover, they are employed within memorials to commemorate the deceased. Memorial museums frequently feature corridors adorned with portraits of those who perished in wars, terrorist attacks or (...) natural disasters. The aim of this paper is twofold: firstly, to develop a theoretical and methodological framework for the analysis of faces in monuments and memorials, drawing upon the cultural semiotics of Juri Lotman as well as theories proposed by Algirdas J. Greimas and Umberto Eco. Secondly, to construct a typology that elucidates the various ways faces are utilized within monuments, memorials, and commemorative practices. A historical roadmap of the facial presence in monuments and memorials is then presented. By achieving these aims, this paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the meanings of faces within monuments and memorials in particular and memory politics in general. (shrink)

When pandemics hit communities, women are bound to suffer as most of the responsibilities of ensuring food security lie on them. This article assesses the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the role that church-going women play in food provision. The qualitative study used interviews and focus group discussions to examine the toll of the pandemic-induced restrictions, especially with regard to their disruption of activities that ensure the provision of food for the family. They sought to identify how an environment (...) as restrictive as the one that was imposed during the COVID-19 pandemic affects those largely responsible for food provision in urban Marondera – the women, in this case. The focus was extended to factor in how disasters and pandemics affect women and detract from their normative food procurement and provision roles in marginal societies and how these effects can be mitigated to allow women to carry on with their roles even in restrictive environments. This research was motivated by the recent COVID-19-imposed regulations that restricted the movement of people, restrictions that have only recently been relaxed and (in some cases) removed. We also sought to establish how gender roles are played out, together with whether they are exacerbated by pandemics, and in what ways these pandemics result in higher workloads on women. By utilising the Africana womanist theory, the study analysed women roles in food provision and food security in their societies within the restrictive environments of the pandemics.Contribution: This study concluded that there are gender inequalities that are exacerbated by these pandemics that result in higher workloads for women. It foregrounded how existing gender inequalities were exacerbated by the pandemic, resulting in higher workloads on women. It therefore recommended that women should form empowerment groups to help focus attention on food provision to mitigate challenges women face in this role. Finally, we averred that there ought to be consultation and participation of women on issues to do with pandemics to allow for their full and productive participation in critical roles of providing food. (shrink)

This discussion originally took place as part of the Sounding the Land exhibition curated by Simon Gush, Helena Pohlandt-McCormick, Craig Paterson and Gary Minkley at the virtual National Arts Festival that ran from 25 June 5 July 2020. Sounding the Land intended to use the bicentennial of the so called 1820 settlers' arrival as a critical platform from which to discuss the legacies of the settler colonial project, the ways in which it is commemorated, and to reassess the historical understandings (...) of the 1820 settler moment in South African history. In the following discussion, which took place via Zoom Video Communication and was originally recorded on 2 June 2020, between Leslie Witz in Cape Town and Helena Pohlandt-McCormick in San Francisco they talk about the cyclical and accumulative power of anniversary and commemoration, the ways they set in place temporal certainties that align past, present and future, and how configurations of memorial space through visual technologies are authoritative mechanisms in establishing the time and times of history. They discuss strategies of resisting such memorial power and whether the simple inversion of historical figures and events may inadvertently serve to reinforce anniversary histories of founding. By linking the contemporary moments of the interview the COVID-19 pandemic, the postponement of settler commemorations, the virtual National Festival, and the killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis they consider dystopian futures as inaugurating the possibilities of disruptive memorial time that constantly exposes the fractures of racial violence and colonial dispossession rather than masking it through either the commemoration or the inversion of the anniversary. (shrink)

Acts of violence develop in relation to place and involve the violation of its very limits. Every significant place is a scene of history, its limits embrace presence and sense. As such, it is the life-worldly home of memory. In this article, I will retrieve the bodily affective dimension of the phenomenon of place memory in instances of public commemoration. Drawing on different philosophical horizons like those of mainly Heidegger, Husserl, Merleau-Ponty, Derrida, Adorno, Ricoeur and Bataille, I’ll contrast their different (...) perspectives on the question of the intertwining of violence, place and memory and refer them to the narrative work of memorials. Insofar violence has been traditionally represented and thereby obliterated by architecture, we may ask how should genocide, as the unspeakable and ungraspable be expressed? I’ll suggest that it can only be attained by the suspension of meaning and presence: A narrative of bodily affections, of pathos, suffering and excess that accounts for what in itself remains beyond expression. (shrink)

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