Landmark Events

by Juliet Fletcher

What we add to the landscape - and what we lose from it -- does matter: So says Dr. Edward Linenthal, whose work within the field of cultural memory deals almost exclusively with how we commemorate events whose hurtling force in the news cycle ensure we will never forget them. The difficulty he identifies in attempts to memorialize national events is "a tension between commemorative voice and historical voice": The sweep of political action by a nation in times of crisis often leaves little moral framework in its wake -- while the act of building a memorial to a terrible day often glosses over the ethically flexible mindset of history and war.

In his academic career, Linenthal has impressed upon institutions the importance of airing varied (and, almost inevitably, conflicting) perspectives on landmark occurrences. He worked as an adviser to the National Air and Space Museum on its controversial 1995 exhibit of the Hiroshima bomber plane Enola Gay, and has written about the consequent upheaval between historians and veterans' groups; elsewhere, he followed the hiccups in the evolution of the American Holocaust Museum, as its curators attempted to please everybody while retaining its integrity. Now -- as the debate over how to adequately commemorate the destruction of the World Trade Center builds -- Linenthal presents a lecture titled "Reflections on September 11 and Oklahoma City: Memorializing Violence on the American Landscape," at Saint Joseph's University this week. The political currency of such debate is valuable in its simple appeals to national sentiment. Yet, using the Oklahoma City tragedy as an example of the design of a suitable public memorial, Linenthal opines that careful thought and combined effort are ultimately the only route to an inclusive result, rather than a divisive one.

“Reflections on September 11 and Oklahoma City: Memorializing Violence on the American Landscape,” Mon., Nov. 11, 4 p.m., free, Haub Executive Center, McShain Hall, Saint Joseph’s University, 5600 City Ave., 610-660-1992.