Violence and Public Memory assesses the relationship between these two subjects by examining their interconnections in varied case studies across the United States, South America, Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Those responsible for the violence discussed in this volume are varied, and the political ideologies and structures range from apartheid to fascism to homophobia to military dictatorships but also democracy. Racism and state terrorism have played central roles in many of the case studies examined in this book, and multiple chapters also engage with the recent rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. The sites and history represented in this volume address a range of issues, including mass displacement, genocide, political repression, forced disappearances, massacres, and slavery. Across the world there are preserved historic sites, memorials, and museums that mark places of significant violence and human rights abuse, which organizations and activists have specifically worked to preserve and provide a place to face history and its continuing legacy today and chapters across this volume directly engage with the questions and issues that surround these sometimes controversial sites.
Including photographs of many of the sites and events covered across the volume, this is an important book for readers interested in the complex and often difficult history of the relationship between violence and the way it is publicly remembered.
Introduction, Martin Henry Blatt Part I: GENOCIDE Chapter 1. A model way of coming to terms with the past? –On the relevance and future tasks of historical-political education in (German) memorial sites, Elke Gryglewski and Katrin Unger; Chapter 2. The Holocaust in American Public Memory, Barry Trachtenberg; Chapter 3. Memorializing Violence as a Political Tool: Public Memory and the Genocide of the Tutsi in Rwanda, Timothy Longman Part II: SLAVERY Chapter 4. From Rumblings to Roar: Racial Violence, Historical Justice and the Changing Public History of Slavery in the United States, Renee Romano; Chapter 5. From a culture of abolition to a culture war: Remembering transatlantic enslavement in Britain, 1807-2021, Jessica Moody Part III: RACIAL AND SEXUAL HATRED IN THE UNITED STATES Chapter 6. Myths, Mascots, Monuments, and Massacres: Rethinking Native American history in the public sphere, Maria John; Chapter 7. Creating the Conditions for Repair: Representation, Memorialization, and Commemoration, Karlos Hill and Karen Murphy; Chapter 8. What is Owed? Reparations, an indictment of public memory, Caleb Gayle; Chapter 9. Remembering Pulse, Lisa Arellano Part IV: APARTHEID Chapter 10. The Art of Memory: Echoes of Apartheid Police Brutality in the 2013 Marikana Massacre, Dylan Wray, Sihle Isipho Nontshokweni and Leah Nasson; Chapter 11. The land of milk and honey (and Palestinians), Eitan Bronstein Aparacio and Eleonore Merza Part V: FASCISM AND WAR Chapter 12. Public Commemorations of Argentina’s Histories of Violence, Marisa Lerer; Chapter 13. The Violence of the Vietnam War in the Memorialized American Landscape, Elise Lemire
Biography
Martin Blatt served as Professor of the Practice and Director of the Public History Program at Northeastern University, USA. He has served as President of the National Council on Public History (NCPH), on the Executive Board of the Organization of American Historians, and on the Board of MASS Humanities. Museum credits include a traveling exhibit on the Gulag, produced by the National Park Service, the Gulag Museum, and Amnesty International. He received the NCPH Robert Kelley Award for outstanding achievement in public history.
