Memorialisation in the Postmodern-Neoliberal Conjuncture
This thesis analyses the place, meaning and significance of large-scale national memorials within what I describe as the contemporary postmodern-neoliberal conjuncture. Developing a distinctive theoretical and methodological approach, I explore the complex interplay between neoliberalism, postmodernism and nationalism in some of the most well-known and most written about national memorials and memorial-museums to have emerged in the US and Germany over the last 35 years. The prevailing consensus in the literature is that the memorials with which I am concerned are ambiguous, pluralistic, non-didactic and non-nationalistic. In contrast, I argue that far from renouncing the traditional ideological role of the monument, contemporary memorials are engaged in rearticulating nationalism in line with the contradictory demands of the current conjuncture. Offering a critical analysis of the relationship between the memorialsâ form, the kind of âvisitor experienceâ theyâre intended to offer, and the understanding of history and our relation to it which underpins their philosophical, ethical and political stance, I trace a specific trajectory from the âpostmodernâ memorials of the 1980s through to what I
Clewer, Nicola
Memorialisation in the Postmodern-Neoliberal Conjuncture. This thesis analyses the place, meaning and significance of large-scale national memorials within what I describe as the contemporary postmodern-neoliberal conjuncture. Developing a distinctive theoretical and methodological approach, I explore the complex interplay between neoliberalism, postmodernism and nationalism in some of the most well-known and most written about national memorials and memorial-museums to have emerged in the US and Germany over the last 35 years. The prevailing consensus in the literature is that the memorials with which I am concerned are ambiguous, pluralistic, non-didactic and non-nationalistic. In contrast, I argue that far from renouncing the traditional ideological role of the monument, contemporary memorials are engaged in rearticulating nationalism in line with the contradictory demands of the current conjuncture. Offering a critical analysis of the relationship between the memorialsâ form, the kind of âvisitor experienceâ theyâre intended to offer, and the understanding of history and our relation to it which underpins their philosophical, ethical and political stance, I trace a specific trajectory from the âpostmodernâ memorials of the 1980s through to what I
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