Difference between revisions of "471A3--Week 9 Questions/Comments--Tuesday"
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A lot of the readings we have read have talked about how the memorial organizations, monuments, ceremonies etc. have at least partially been created because of the desire to transmit stories to younger generations. Do you think this remains one of the main factors as to why individuals or groups of people wish to commemorate or memorialize events or figures in history today? -Avanness | A lot of the readings we have read have talked about how the memorial organizations, monuments, ceremonies etc. have at least partially been created because of the desire to transmit stories to younger generations. Do you think this remains one of the main factors as to why individuals or groups of people wish to commemorate or memorialize events or figures in history today? -Avanness | ||
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| + | Le Anne White concludes her essay with a pondering about what memorialization will look like the further we get from the Civil War. Do you think we as a people will ever put enough distance between us and the Civil War to look at it with a less jaundiced eye? -R.King | ||
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| + | To me the Ayers piece was the most interesting of the three readings. Do you think that a new revisionist look at the Civil War would "place more distance between nineteenth century Americans and ourselves,"? -R.King | ||
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| + | I was a bit disturbed by Shackel's statement that the National Park Service's "interpretation" of the Manassas battle field purposely eliminates any discussion of the causes of the Civil War. Don't you think they should embrace that aspect of the history and at the very least put the battle fought there in some kind of context? -R.King | ||
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| + | In Memory in Black and White Shackle discusses how the construction of public memory has changed since World War II. Author Michael Kammen states that since World War II, commemoration activities in the United States have became increasingly decentralized as the federal government has played a decreasing role in the construction of public memory (Shakle pg. 13). The lack of commemoration activities has played a significant role in the construction of public memory, but what other factors contribute to public memory? Also is the decentralization of commemoration a depoliticized process, or a highly politicized process? -Nick. J | ||
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| + | I also really liked the Ayers article, and reading it made me realize how deeply ingrained the Ken Burns Civil War narrative is in me. Do you think that that narrative is still serving a purpose in American memory? What purpose is that and what would change that narrative's usefulness in defining us as a nation? --Erin B | ||
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| + | Ayers brought up several important points regarding the way narratives on the Civil War have transformed. Is there one or more interpretations that hold more weight than the others? Also, he notes that "slavery and freedom remain the keys to understanding the war- but they are the place to begin our questions, not end them." Do you agree with this assessment? -ABratchie | ||
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| + | Do you think that the partnership between African Americans and white women at the University of Mississippi to change and "take aim at the very aspects of Southern culture that the UDC had labored so diligently to promote" was an isolated case (226)? How much of the Civil War memory do you think really prompted this type of action on the part of the students? -ABratchie | ||
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| + | Why was the movement of the Confederate rock to another state building not contested by the students from th University of Missouri who had fought for its removal from campus? Does this say something about the community that the school had created or the community the students expected from the school (229ish Leeann Whites)? --Erin B. | ||
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| + | Why did revisionism which was so powerful in the first half of the twentieth century fade away as Ayers says in the second half of the 20th century. Were revisionists simply sentimentalists? -Nick J | ||
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| + | In Leeann Whites' piece, she mentions "the appropriateness of Confederate memorialization." Just like with the Confederate battle flag- where do you draw the line? Or can a line be drawn? -MK | ||
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| + | Shackel discusses how a common history does not mean a common experience. How does this lack on common experience change the public memory of the Civil War? -MK | ||
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| + | In Leeann Whites' article, she cites Gloria Steinem's speech at the University, who claims, "[white] women have more empathy with blacks because both have been victims of the white man's discrimination." What do you think of this quote? I am a bit torn; I see reasons to agree with it and reasons to disagree with it. (I'm leaning more on the agreeing side) Is Steinem correct in comparing the plights of both these groups? Are they comparable?- aaskins | ||
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| + | Wiener's article brings up an important issue about reenactments. Without a doubt, at the time of the Centennial when attacks on the Freedom Riders were rampant, Civil War reenactments were extremely inappropriate. But this makes me wonder, what about now? I know there are several reenactors in the class, and I have never attended one, so I'm curious to know if there is any sort of tension at these events. Are there people who protest the reenactments claiming that they are offensive?- aaskins | ||
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| + | I found the story of Easter, a black slave who gave information to union troops, very interesting, mainly because when southerners found out that she was reporting things to the union they only threatened her, instead of outright killing her or taking her to prison or somewhere else. Instead they gave her the option to " skeedaddle like hell", which was the last thing i'd expect. - AJ | ||
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| + | Do you agree with Ayers assessment that today's understanding of the civil war came out of, at least in part, a desire to "restock Robert Penn Warren's "Treasury of Virtue"" after the vietnam war, giving the north, south, and black american's a piece of the different virtues that he speaks about? -AJ | ||
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| + | Was anyone else curious about some of the terminology used in the Whites article? In several cases, the phrase "laid claim" is used to in conjunction with the UDC and Confederate memory. What are the implications of any group "laying claim" to some aspect of public memory?- DR | ||
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| + | Do you agree with Shackel when he says that public memory is, in many ways, a power struggle? If memory is collective, and the memories of each individual group vying for power help create a broader public memory, how do we justify the power that the Lost Cause currently holds?- DR | ||
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| + | I thought the chapter that talked about the Civil War in Missouri was interesting. I am in the middle of reading a book about the guerilla war that went on in Missouri and I wonder why neither side of the issue as used it to back up there interpretations of the war. It would be easy to use examples from it and say the South was right or the North was right. Is it because that aspect of the war hurts both points of view and should be forgotten? Logan T | ||
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| + | The two pieces about the memory of the war are also interesting. I could not help but think when I was reading them that so many of the questions that we ask in class could be answered by basic human psychology. I also liked Ayers conclusion which stated there was “no hinge which the war turned on”. I think that a good question to ask is would have happen if the North won Manassas first and second, Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville. What would have happened if the South would have won Shiloh or Chattanooga? Would these battles be remembered as the turning point of the war? Logan T | ||
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| + | Anyone else surprised by the fact that there was a UDC in Missouri? Also, did most/all chapters celebrate the fact that their "place" was to serve their white men? -Megan Mc. | ||
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| + | Is 150 years enough time to look back at the Civil War? Or should historians have waited until the 200th anniversary like James F. Barnes believed? -Megan Mc. | ||
