Commemoration

The American Association for State and Local History Guide

Edited by Seth C. Bruggeman

Publication date:

27 October 2017

Length of book:

180 pages

Publisher

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

ISBN-13: 9781442279186

Commemoration: The American Association for State and Local History Guide serves as a handbook for historic site managers, heritage professionals, and all manner of public historians who contend daily with the ground-level complexities of commemoration. Its fourteen short essays are intended as tools for practitioners, students, and anyone else confronted with common problems in commemorative practice today. Of particular concern are strategies for expanding commemoration across the panoply of American identities, confronting tragedy and difficult pasts, and doing responsible work in the face of persistent economic and political turmoil. A special afterword explores the role of emotion in modern commemoration and what it suggests about possibilities for engaging new audiences.

1. Introduction: Conundrum and Nuance in American Memory - Seth C. Bruggeman
2. The Exhibition and the Funeral: Commemoration as Display - Tammy S. Gordon
3. Festivals as a Commemorative Genre - William S. Walker
4. Reenactment: Performing the Past - Cathy Stanton
5. A Local Commemoration of National Significance - Anne C. Reilly
6. Get Territorial: Idaho at 150 - Janet L. Gallimore
7. Global Histories and Cross-Border Commemoration - Adam Hjorthén
8. Sir John A. Macdonald and the Problem of Great Men - Jean-Pierre Morin
9. Gay is Good: Commemorating LGBTQ History - Kenneth C. Turino
10. Sacred Subjects: Religion and Commemoration in America - Devin C. Manzullo-Thomas
11. Commemoration as Activism - Patrick Grossi
12. Alive in Our Imagination: The Sesquicentennial of the American Civil War - Rick Beard and Bob Beatty
13. Commemorating Tragedy at Mother Emanuel AME Church - George W. McDaniel
14. Afterword: Commemoration, Conversation, and Public Feeling in America Today - Erika Doss

[T]his volume lays out a collection of succinct and straightforward discussions that speak to the complexities inherent in public commemoration that heritage professionals will find insightful, applicable, and thought-provoking. With examples and case studies rooted in the present and recent past, Commemoration offers a helpful glimpse into contemporary commemorative practice and does so with a decidedly forward-thinking lens, offering honest reflections on the challenges, deficiencies, and common pitfalls that face those treading into the slippery yet weighty territory of public memory, feeling, and remembrance.