Memorials to Shattered Myths: Vietnam to 9/11
Harriet F. Senie
Abstract
Although radically different, the Vietnam War, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine High School shootings, and the attacks of 9/11 all shattered myths of national identity. Vietnam was a war the United States didn’t win, on the ground in Asia or politically at home; Oklahoma City revealed domestic terrorism in the heartland; Columbine debunked legends of high school as an idyllic time; and 9/11 demonstrated U.S. vulnerability to international terrorism. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was created with the intention of separating the victims from the war that caused their death. This focus on ... More
Although radically different, the Vietnam War, the Oklahoma City bombing, the Columbine High School shootings, and the attacks of 9/11 all shattered myths of national identity. Vietnam was a war the United States didn’t win, on the ground in Asia or politically at home; Oklahoma City revealed domestic terrorism in the heartland; Columbine debunked legends of high school as an idyllic time; and 9/11 demonstrated U.S. vulnerability to international terrorism. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was created with the intention of separating the victims from the war that caused their death. This focus on the loss of individual lives, evident in the Oklahoma City National Memorial & Museum, the Columbine Memorial, and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum, all conflate the function of cemeteries where deaths are singular and grieving is personal, with the task of memorials, to remember and mourn actual and symbolic communal losses, reflecting on national events framed in a larger context. This book traces the evolution and consequences of this new hybrid paradigm based on strategies of diversion and denial.
Keywords:
Columbine Memorial,
September 11 Memorial,
September 11 Museum,
Oklahoma City Memorial,
Oklahoma City Museum,
Vietnam Veterans Memorial
Bibliographic Information
| Print publication date: 2016 |
Print ISBN-13: 9780190248390 |
| Published to Oxford Scholarship Online: January 2016 |
DOI:10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190248390.001.0001 |
Authors
Affiliations are at time of print publication.
Harriet F. Senie, author
Professor of Contemporary American Art, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
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