Over at the Washington Post.com, there's a slide show that seems relevant to our work together. It appears that the task of this slide show is to commemorate commemorations of 9/11. Beginning with 1) a "makeshift memorial" at Arlington National Cemetery, it moves to 2) a 9/11 memorial service (starring G.W. Bush as Big Brother), 3) a wall of photographs of Pentagon workers, 4, 5, and 6) designs for a 9/11 memorial at the Pentagon, 7) groundbreaking and a marker, 11) workers welding away to make the memorial benches, 12) information about Arab-Americans working on the memorial as a way of "giving back," and 13) the future site of the memorial itself. This "document" appears to be a lieux de memoire itself for our first 9/11 lieux de memoire ("The Nation's First 9/11 Memorial"). In its own way, the slide show is more adept at its task than the memorial itself; because of the sheer reach of its form of media we not only have a historicization of the act of commemorating 9/11 (memorializing the memorial itself) but also have a way to access the memorial even though we are not there.
Although the Washington Post deems this the "first" memorial, a quick search on Google Images suggests that it's not. One blogger posts a picture of his/her neighborhood's 9/11 memorial. St. Joseph's County's park service has its own memorial in Indiana. And there are still more. I wonder why, then, there's some investment of identifying a "first" 9/11 memorial. Doesn't a "makeshift" memorial or any of these others do the same work of commemoration? Or is it simply that this memorial is located at one of the sites of the attacks and is accorded status as a result?
Since this is the "first" memorial, with New York's memorial slated for September 11, 2009, I can only imagine that is just the beginning of what's to come. Perhaps this slide show eventually will be cannibalized and subsumed into a larger history of 9/11 memorials.
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3 comments:
There appears to be a major schism between how New York and Washington D.C. each commemorate 9/11. While it is hardly surprising that the Washington Post has elected to focus on its own regional tributes, I note several NYC memorials that have been in existence for quite some time now: Masayuki Sono's "Postcards," the two pillars of light at Ground Zero, and (while technically a permanent exhibition) St. Paul's Chapel located at Fulton St. and Broadway. (I would also note that ad hoc flags were constructed almost immediately at and around the Trade Center site.)
Thanks for the further insight, since I know this is your specialty. These other examples lend further credence to my question: By what token is this Pentagon memorial "first."
I think you're right to suggest that NY and DC take different approaches to 9/11. But I wonder also if this is some kind of institutionalized memorial or that it's getting some sort of sanctioning that makes it "official." A previous article in the Post indicates that the Pentagon Memorial is being built entirely with donated money, so it's not really about the source of funds.
Or maybe I'm overthinking this one, and it's just simply the first permanent memorial at one of the sites.
Wikipedia on 9/11 memorials: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11,_2001_attacks#Memorials
I appreciate the link to the slideshow, Roopsi. (I also want to say that when I clicked on it, I first had to watch an ad for an insurance company that featured a humorous car crash.) I'm also glad to hear the exchange thinking through 9/11 memorials. My own knowledge of these is fairly cursory, but I think you and Nick have hit on several key questions: the ways in which individual memorials position themselves, the ways in which they lay claim to certain kinds of experience, and the language of the "official".
I had originally thought of including in this class a common scholarly reading on 9/11 memorials, but did not. For what it's worth, I elected not to because I think the scholarship, like the memorials, is still evolving -- and because I don't quite have a handle on it either, and because I thought it would keep coming up for us in different ways on its own. Marita Sturken has a book coming out in November which should be good, I think.
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