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Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology & the Ancient World
Brown University
Box 1837 / 60 George Street
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: (401) 863-3188
Fax: (401) 863-9423
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Discussion questions
Posted at Sep 21/2011 09:35PM:
Katherine Haves:
1) How do architects and cities deal with representing absence? Does the 9/11 memorial effectively display this absence?
2) Yifat Gutman writes, "Building (on) a site of memory is a symbolic-material practice that forms a concrete version of past events" (56). How does creating an official version of the past reflect or conflict with the individual's memories? Is this version the same as the "collective" memory?
It's commonly said that 9/11 scarred New York, but has the event and it's memory been co-opted by the nation at large? The World Trade Center was an icon of New York commerce, but Ground Zero is a site of national, rather than local trauma. Presumably the monument being built there will be national in it's scope as well. Going further, how do other monuments, in New York or elsewhere, change the scope of an event or person from local to national?
Posted at Sep 21/2011 10:33PM:
Morgan Albertson: The tragedy of 9/11 and the resulting site of Ground Zero is still fresh in our minds today. It is a vivid memory because we were able to experience at least some part of the trauma. Considering the memorialization of this site, what is the best way to make memories accessible to future generations? Watts explains that a "memorial must speak across time and circumstance (413)." Active engagement lets visitors experience, feel, and relate to the event being commemorated. Yet how do we create a "sociable landscape" without lessening the atrocity?
Returning back to remembering 9/11 today, how does one find balance between remembering and forgetting when both seem necessary to heal from a tragedy?
#Brittany Westerman
Throughout all of the readings the authors stressed the relation of a material object to remembering and forgetting. Forty specifically points to four distinct methods of forgetting. Looking specifically at Ground Zero, the memorial must highlight the tangiable absence of the two buildings. How has the destruction of the two towers impacted New York City and how will the building of a memorial function as a 'narrative of hope' and in the 'renewal of the city' (Watts)?