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Book SynopsisRhetorics Haunting the National Mall: Displaced and Ephemeral Public Memories vividly illustrates that a nation's history is more complicated than the simple binary of remembered/forgotten. Some parts of history, while not formally recognized within a commemorative landscape, haunt those landscapes by virtue of their ephemeral or displaced presence. Rather than being discretely contained within a formal sites, these memories remain public by lingering along the edges and within the crevices of commemorative landscapes. By integrating theories of haunting, place, and public memory, this collection demonstrates that the National Mall, often referred to as the nation's front yard, might better be understood as the nation's attic because it hides those issues we do not want to address but cannot dismiss. The neatly ordered installations and landscaping of the National Mall, if one looks and listens closely, reveal the messiness of US history. From the ephemeral memories of protests on the
Trade ReviewWe are, as Roger C. Aden suggests in the introduction to Rhetorics Haunting the National Mall, forever haunted by the past. We cannot escape the past, even when parts of it are dispersed, displaced, and downplayed. There may be no more compelling example of this truth than the commemorative landscape of the National Mall, which is the apogee of official appeals to national memory. For even as its monuments of marble and stone aggressively tell one story of our nation, other stories can be heard in the spaces betwixt and between these national landmarks. In a truly innovative collection of essays, Rhetorics Haunting the National Mall thoughtfully explores these alternative stories, illuminating the complex and contested nature of public memory in the process. A truly fascinating and unexpected examination of the most famous landscape of memory in the US. -- Brian L. Ott, Texas Tech University
The authors in this provocative volume work to disrupt the memorial space of the National Mall by invoking the various voices who have used this space as a site of dissent and contestation and by attending to the memorial spaces often downplayed for bypassed. In so doing, these authors remind us that invoking the past is never simple and that understanding the power of public memory requires careful attention to its rhetoric. -- Kendall R. Phillips, Syracuse University
The impressive monuments in the heart of Washington, DC are familiar to most Americans. Rhetorics Haunting the National Mall is a highly original collection that actually reveals many events connected to this notable place that were displaced from public view. As such it reveals fractures in our national memory not apparent in the overall grandeur of the site. -- John Bodnar, Indiana University
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments I. Introduction Chapter 1. Haunting, Public Memories, and the National Mall Roger C. Aden II. Affective Presences of Ephemeral Memories Chapter 2. Invoking the Spirits: A Rhetorical Séance Aaron Hess, A. Cheree Carlson, and Carlos Flores Chapter 3. Before the National Mall: Coxey’s Army and the Precedent for Public Protest Sean Luechtefeld Chapter 4. The Bonus Army March of 1932: Uneasy Legacies of Protest, Dissent, and Violence in American Memory Roger C. Aden and Kenneth E. Foote Chapter 5. The “Unmarked and Unremarked” Memories of the National Mall: Resurrection City and the Unreconciled History of the Civil Rights Movement as Radical Place-Making Ethan Bottone, Derek H. Alderman, and Joshua Inwood III. Faint Traces of Deflected Memories Chapter 6. Haunting Dreams: Time and Affect in the Neoliberal Commemoration of “I Have a Dream” Michael P. Vicaro Chapter 7. The Haunting of “Forgotten” Places: Nineteenth Century Slave-Pens on the National Mall Elizabethada A. Wright Chapter 8. The Portrait Monument’s Emblematic and Tortured History Teresa Bergman Chapter 9. Which Souls Shall Haunt Us? Competing Genocidal Memoryscapes and the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Selective Colonial Memorializations Marouf Hasian Jr. and Stephanie Marek Muller Chapter 10. Oft’ Remembered, Oft’ Forgotten: Remembering James Garfield Theodore F. Sheckels Chapter 11. The National Gallery of Art: Remembering the Haunting Voices of the Ghosts Carl T. Hyden IV. Conclusion Chapter 12. Confronting the Ghosts in the National Attic Roger C. Aden Index About the Editor About the Contributors
