Doctor of Philosophy / Department of History / Charles W. Sanders / General James Birdseye McPherson, the highest ranking Union officer killed during the Civil War, slowly over time became a largely forgotten figure in the collective memory of most Americans. A brief examination of the general's personal life and military career reveals that his life's narrative presented a captivating story, one which successfully captured the attention of his contemporaries. In the fifty years following his death, several groups of interested individuals sought to honor the general's memory through the construction of memorials. This dissertation approaches the history of McPherson through a memory study focusing particularly on the general's memorialization and the four main locations where the general had monuments built in his honor. In Washington, D.C., Clyde, Ohio, Atlanta, Georgia, and McPherson, Kansas, the attempts to preserve McPherson's memory both succeeded in certain ways but also fell short of accomplishing their primary goal. In the process of memorialization the general was both remembered and forgotten. The funding, unveiling, and preserving of the various monuments illuminates the politics of commemoration as well as the motives behind those seeking to honor McPherson. With the passing of time, McPherson's memory slowly began to evolve in each location and generally changed to reflect the times and circumstances of the citizens. In each case, the McPherson memorials signified something different to the community, including a permanent reflection of local identity, a symbol of sectional reconciliation, or a means of promoting civic pride and local boosterism. Ultimately, although the memorialization of McPherson served as the best attempt to honor the generals' memory, the narrow scope and reach of memorials could not successfully preserve McPherson's memory beyond a very limited range and within small communities of interested parties.

What are the intersections between literary and memorial studies? This study interrogates that question by combining critical readings of contemporary American literature (1969-present) with national memorials. My method of reading moves between physical memorials that provide canonical representations of American historical events and textual memorials that provide literary counter-readings of the same events. These texts challenge traditional memorial-making by reframing the discourses for the ways memorials function in American culture. The study of memorial traverses several disciplines and fields of scholarship. Within the broad field of memorial studies, this dissertation examines the concerns of physical monuments and memorials, memory and counter-memory, trauma and terror, place and community, and absence and haunting. Situating both literary and physical memorials within these interconnected frameworks offers an interdisciplinary and multidirectional understanding of what memorials can be, what they mean, and what they do in the contemporary era. A useful way to understand how literature can be framed as memorial is through recognizing its overlap with Pierre Nora’s concept of “lieux de mémoire,” or sites of memory. Nora defines lieux de mémoire as sites where memory eternally lingers. These lieux “are fundamentally remains, the ultimate embodiments of a memorial consciousness” (12). Commemorative texts fall into this categorization because of their existence as purely symbolic objects that nevertheless address the many interests of history and memory. Literature utilizes imaginative and emotive modes to reframe the ways in which sites of memory can work in American culture. In this way, they become “the ultimate [embodiment] of a memorial consciousness.” The literature analyzed in this dissertation enriches memorial studies by adopting forms of counternarrative as radical frameworks for thinking and rethinking American memorialization. Literature’s theoretical production of memorial contrasts with most national memorials’ physicality. Thus, it is worth considering how literary abstraction allows for different ways of responding to history and trauma. The literary memorial’s dialogic facilities allow it to be subversive without seeking legitimacy from the national organizations that typically approve of the nation’s large built memorials. Therefore, literature does not perform merely as memorial but also as countermemorial. The countermemorial challenges authoritative structures by questioning patriotic tropes, resisting nationalistic expression, and reconstructing historical understanding. In doing so, it posits lyric and fiction as valid methods of truth-telling and memorial-making.

The thesis studies history-making in Melbourne’s central civic sphere, from its emergence in the 1880s to its decline in the 1930s. It identifies public history’s major themes and forms, and the relationships between them, based on four main cases of history-making: the articulation of the past and history in Melbourne’s 1888 Centennial International Exhibition; the historical backgrounds, development, unveilings and partial after-lives of Sir Redmond Barry’s statue, unveiled in Swanston Street in 1887, and the Eight Hours’ Day monument, unveiled in Carpentaria Place in 1903; and history-making around Victoria’s 1934-1935 Centenary Celebrations, with special emphasis on the Shrine of Remembrance and a detailed study of Cooks’ Cottage.

The thesis studies history-making in Melbourne’s central civic sphere, from its emergence in the 1880s to its decline in the 1930s. It identifies public history’s major themes and forms, and the relationships between them, based on four main cases of history-making: the articulation of the past and history in Melbourne’s 1888 Centennial International Exhibition; the historical backgrounds, development, unveilings and partial after-lives of Sir Redmond Barry’s statue, unveiled in Swanston Street in 1887, and the Eight Hours’ Day monument, unveiled in Carpentaria Place in 1903; and history-making around Victoria’s 1934-1935 Centenary Celebrations, with special emphasis on the Shrine of Remembrance and a detailed study of Cooks’ Cottage.

Thesis (M.S.)--Oregon State University. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 62-65). Also available on the World Wide Web.

In this thesis I examine the Holy Grave monument located in the St. Catherine chapel of Strasbourg cathedral, erected by Bishop Berthold von Bucheck sometime between 1346 and 1348. This sculptural sarcophagus currently exists in fragmented form in the Musée de l'Oeuvre Notre-Dame; only the four relief panels of the sleeping guardians, the gisant of Christ, and some fragments of the baldachin remain of the original monument. Scholars have been able to ascertain the placement and probable appearance of the Holy Grave based on traces of three lancet bays, wall paint, and bolt holes discovered along the west wall of the chapel during twentieth-century excavations. The numerous copies that the St. Catherine Holy Grave inspired throughout Strasbourg and the surrounding area attests to the significance of the monument within the larger Holy Grave tradition. The Strasbourg Holy Grave functioned liturgically as a prop used by the clergy to reenact the drama of the resurrection during Holy Week. I argue, however, that the monument's permanence, relative accessibility, and pathos-inspiring imagery suggest its use on a more frequent basis. Through its isolation of scenes from the biblical narrative and its visualization of complex mystical metaphors, the Holy Grave at Strasbourg cathedral--and thus also the numerous copies it inspired--reveals its use as an object for personal devotion, much like the group of Rhenish Andachtsbilder that also flourished at this time. The changing beliefs concerning Christ's Passion, the nature of the Eucharist, and the understanding of death and the afterlife are reflected in the style, iconography, and didactic message of the Holy Grave monument. The influence that the mendicant orders and Rhenish mystics had on the spiritual instruction of the laity in Strasbourg points to the understanding of this monument as a tool to aid the faithful in achieving union with God. The popularity of Holy Graves in and around Strasbourg ultimately illustrates the medieval desire for proximity to the divine. As the emphasis on Christ's suffering and death grew throughout the devotional practices of the fourteenth century, art forms like the Holy Grave monument at Strasbourg cathedral increasingly focused on engendering pathos in the medieval devout. The Strasbourg Holy Grave's liturgical, devotional, and anagogical functions coalesce to create a monument that's fundamental purpose consisted of aiding the faithful in their journey toward salvation. / text

The cooling preceding the beginning of North American continental glaciation is beautifully represented by the thick fluvial and lacustrine sequences of the Pliocene Glenns Ferry Formation at the Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument (HAFO), Idaho. This time interval is commonly studied because it contains the elevated global temperatures predicted to result from continued anthropogenic warming. The fossil mammals at HAFO were examined to see the effects of climate change on past mammalian assemblages. The nature of the fossiliferous localities at HAFO was documented to establish which localities could be considered in situ. Additionally, the structural architecture of the beds was mapped to establish an idealized stratigraphic datum to which localities were tied. This facilitated temporal comparison of the widespread localities at HAFO. Second, a high-resolution record of climate change was created using global climate models to predict which oceanic areas varied in temperature in concert with HAFO during the middle Pliocene. Data from deep-sea cores from those oceanic areas were combined to create a proxy temperature pattern; such a detailed record from terrestrial data in the Glenns Ferry Formation is not currently possible. Selected mammalian groups, carnivorans, insectivorans, and leporids, were examined in light of the established climatic patterns. The cooling through the lower portion of the Glenns Ferry Formation corresponds to variation in the morphology of individual species, the relative abundance of species, and the species-level diversity of mammalian groups. There is a return to warm temperatures near the top of the section at HAFO, and the mammals returned to the conditions exhibited before the cool-temperature extreme. This faunal resilience, however, occurred over hundreds of thousands of years. The final paleoecologic approach established correlations between the species diversity of groups of modern mammals and modern climatic values. Many modern groups were found to be highly-significantly correlated to climate, but when the established predictive equations were applied to HAFO, the results were variable. Estimates of annual precipitation varied widely, depending on the taxonomic group, and also deviated from precipitation estimates from sedimentology. Temperature patterns were more consistent with each other and with the pattern of the deep-sea core proxy. / text

No description available.

This presentation is a summary key findings and recommendations for the Bandelier National Monument Traditional Use Study. This presentation was given by Dr. Stoffle during seperate meetings with National Park Service staff and the involved tribes.

This presentation is a summary of findings of the Tonto National Monument Ethnographic Study. This presentation was shared with the three participating tribes and their associated tribal governments.