As a controversial and violent act of bombing a civilian city, the Dresden raids of 13 to 15 February 1945 persist in public memory and academic discussions as a symbol of destruction and whether strategic and/or area bombings are justified and necessary acts of modern war. The various ways in which the Dresden bombings have been remembered and commemorated has contributed a great deal towards this city’s enduring legacy. This thesis examines the wartime bombings of Dresden to investigate how the memory, commemoration and narrative of the Dresden raids have been shaped and framed in public and academic discourses since 1945. To do so, this study focuses on the city of Dresden during the phase of Allied occupation, the period of East Germany and briefly beyond reunification to demonstrate the ongoing and changing discursive legacy of this controversial event. / Graduate

Master of Landscape Architecture / Department of Landscape Architecture and Regional & Community Planning / Anne E. Beamish / Cemeteries are often perceived as static landscapes containing markers of our collective past. Although this characterization encapsulates the function of a funerary landscape, it does not account for the experiential and restorative qualities these spaces can provide. Memorials can act as a bridge, connecting us to the departed by allowing for the projection of remembrance onto a tangible medium. At the turn of the 20th Century, the funerary industry in the United States began to define itself as a profession with the introduction of preservation technologies. Although these methods were not initially accepted, they are now considered to be the modern societal norm. Recently, there has been a revival in natural burial practices as an alternative to the traditional casket-embalming method. Ecological cemeteries incorporate natural burial practices as a way to provide their clientele with a sustainable, natural way of interment. This burial process includes a basic grave, shroud or biodegradable enclosure for the body and no toxic embalming fluids as a way of ensuring the body returns to the earth while enhancing the natural ecological cycle. These natural burial sites do not display rows of gravestones but are rather evocative landscapes meant to provide consolation without the environmental drawbacks that modern burial practices pose. This more sustainable, but often invisible, practice uses little physical denotation for mourners to identify their loved ones. Cemetery design needs to retain the emotive and restorative qualities of funerary landscapes while accommodating the growing trend of natural burials. This project aims to create a design framework that can inform existing and future cemeteries by investigating burial norms, how people commemorate, the experiential design of funerary landscapes, and the evolution of natural burials. These findings were combined with precedent studies, surveys, interviews, and design guidelines. The resultant design guidelines were then applied to an existing cemetery, Sunrise Cemetery located in Manhattan, Kansas. The proposed funerary landscape will provide mourners with a meaningful place for commemoration while maintaining healthy ecologies and could lead to a considerable shift in burial norms in the United States by demonstrating how a variety of remembrance practices can be accommodated in an ecological cemetery.

The experiences of grief and mourning in response to loss are fundamentally transformative to the self-identity of the mourner, necessitating an array of ritualized behaviors at the communal and individual levels. These rituals of mourning both create a space in which this transformation may take place and provide the structure that can direct that transformation. My focus is on historical and emerging forms of vernacular commemoration, by which I refer to material forms that are created by, acted upon, or in other ways utilized by a person experiencing grief in the service of regaining a sense of stability in the aftermath of loss. The re-integration of the bereaved, through mourning, back into society in new relation with the departed is often assisted by these vernacular memorial forms. My analysis focuses on three specific forms of commemoration: spirit photographs, ghost bikes, and memorial tattoos. These are vernacular forms of expression in the sense that they have emerged from and cater to individual needs and desires that are not satisfied by the more official and uniform materials and processes of mourning, such as the funeral service and subsequent visits to a gravesite or contemplation of an ash-filled urn. The power of these memorial forms rests in the adaptive and restorative abilities of memory to retain the lost relationship and to pull it forward and reconstitute it in a changed state as enduring and continuing into the future. When faced with the sudden death of a loved one, the traditional rituals that surround modern death may seem too rigid and homogenized to satisfy the wide array of emotions demanding attention in the bereaved. This is where the vernacular rituals and new forms of commemoration discussed in this dissertation spring up and make themselves known. Highly individual, yet often publicly and politically motivated, these new American ways of interpreting death and performing mourning represent the changing needs of contemporary mourners. As death has become increasingly hidden away and discussion of it rendered taboo, the need for personal and direct interaction with the processes of grief and mourning have become more and more important. / 2016-09-29

This thesis is an examination of how the Second World War has been commemorated in Northern Ireland. It seeks to explore how popular and official understandings of the war were constructed around two key moments. Primarily, it looks at the Victory celebrations to mark the end of the war in the West in May 1945. Secondly, it examines the importance of the publication of the official war history Northern Ireland in the Second World War in November 1956. By looking closely at how the Northern Irish government planned for the victory celebrations and how this ritual unfolded, we can reveal much about Northern Irish society at the end of the war. This thesis shows that the state-led, official commemoration served only to alienate the Catholic community. Exploring how the Northern Irish press recorded this event highlights the underlying tensions existing between both communities at the time. This thesis argues that the Northern Irish government used the victory celebrations to project a positive image of itself to the British government. Equally, in 1940 the Northern Irish government rather pre-emptively commissioned the writing of its own official war history, separate from the United Kingdom Official War History Series. This decision, taken by the Northern Irish government, was intended to ensure that Northern Ireland’s role in the war would never be forgotten. After 1945, the unionist government, preoccupied with securing its constitutional positioning within the United Kingdom, intended to make this official history a permanent memorial to Northern Ireland’s contribution to the war. Written, therefore, to exaggerate Northern Ireland’s part in the war, this official war history can be seen as a reflection of unionist insecurity. It is through these commemorative processes that ideas of national identity and belonging are explored.

No description available.

Commemoratives sites, as the term might suggest, are most often evaluated in the transitional justice literature in relationship to time. Scholars debate if and to what extent commemorative sites can leverage history and memory in service of peace, justice, and/or reconciliation. Alternatively, these same spaces have been critiqued as counterproductive to the transitional cause. They are constant reminders of trauma, hollow gestures, and continually vulnerable to politicization as the powerful attempt to manipulate history in service of a particular narrative. While these debates remain relevant, commemorative sites are not just analogs of memory, they are also public or communal spaces. Commemorative sites are a unique mechanism in transitional justice for their physicality, and as such, should be evaluated for their spatial qualities. This study uses planning/design literature to offer a new analytical lens to the study of commemorative sites as transitional approach. Based on observational, archival and interview case study evidence in the Eastern Cape of South Africa and Inhambane province in Mozambique, I argue that a commemorative site is more than just the product of its narration. It represents the evolution and potential of the spatial landscape in post-conflict life. In both South Africa and Mozambique, the ability to create and/or use these kinds of spaces implicate critical sociopolitical relationships for transitioning societies, particularly dynamics of ownership. Individuals and communities become stakeholders in the political system as they are empowered to or prohibited from leaving a fingerprint on the (re)design and function of their physical environment. These same consumers continue to control how such spaces are used and to what end. They can be places of gathering, exchange, interaction, confrontation, and debate, or they can be left unused and idle. Whether through assertion or acknowledgement, commemorative sites serve as a living expression of ownership over the built and natural environment. The practice of commemoration is of course highly variable across the cases outlined in the following chapters, but the question of space is hugely consequential, sometimes even superseding concerns of memory and heritage. The spatial politics of commemorative sites can be constructive or conflictual, but is exemplary of how the design and use of commemorative spaces is a layered political project and suggestive of the way in which commemorative sites might serve as a more sophisticated or holistic approach to transitional justice.

The objective of this thesis is to examine the issue of identity construction among Vietnamese intellectuals in North America. How is the way in which they construct their identity connected to their position(s) on the Vietnam War, anti-communist community discourse, and memory/commemoration, especially with respect to the contentious debate about which flag represents Vietnam today? Vietnamese Diaspora Intellectuals (VDI) are an understudied group, and I hope my research will help to fill this gap, at least in part, and also serve as a catalyst for further investigation. In my attempt to address this neglected area of study, I am bringing together two bodies of literature: diaspora studies and literature on identity formation among intellectuals. The intersection between these two areas of scholarship has received relatively little attention in the past, and it deserves further consideration, because intellectuals are so often in a position to serve as carriers and disseminators of new ideas, as well as facilitators in conflict resolution. Using a qualitative approach to my data collection, I conducted life history narrative interviews with 32 respondents in Canada and the U.S, as well as some participant observation research of community events. The majority of my interviewees were academics, but some were also journalists/writers, as well as community activists/representatives. A key element of diaspora research, as Cohen and Watts have argued, involves an examination of the “victim narrative”. My project considers the victim narrative in the context of the Vietnamese experience and evaluates the usefulness of such a narrative in terms of community politics and identity formation. My interviewees were often skeptical about the utility of such a narrative, and in some cases, viewed it as a thinly veiled mechanism of control, which serves the interests of community leaders, but may in fact, hinder the progress of the Vietnamese diaspora population. They contemplated some possibilities for transcending such a narrative, which could involve the creation of “free spaces”, permitting the expression of other points of view. As we will see, my interviewees reflected on the irony inherent in this situation. Many Vietnamese risked their lives in pursuit of the democratic ideal of freedom, but some of my participants discovered that the attempt to impose an overarching narrative – the rejection of communism – in fact led to the very antithesis of that ideal. In this connection, my research complicates Cohen’s work on diaspora, which assumes that all diasporic communities speak with one voice with regard to defining moments in their history. Cohen argues that members of such groups, by definition, shared a common past, an agreed-upon way of commemorating that past, and a common destiny. I argue that Cohen has oversimplified the situation. My research demonstrates that there is no such thing as unanimity. Vietnamese diaspora intellectuals do not simply navigate academic “interaction ritual chains” as Randall Collins has asserted, they must navigate several - often competing interaction rituals - which extend to their roles as members of their ethnic community as well. How do my interviewees deal with the inevitable conflicts and tensions engendered by such competing interaction rituals? Finally, what are the possibilities of moving forward, of generating a new narrative, which will transcend the rigid and restrictive anticommunist discourse dominant in community politics thus far? And what role can Vietnamese diaspora intellectuals play in this regard? My research indicates that they are uniquely qualified to facilitate the process of rapprochement, because the life of intellectuals demands a high degree of reflexivity and thus better enables them to evaluate the merits of conflicting viewpoints. My hope is to inspire future research – not only in the Vietnamese community, but on and for other diasporic groups as well. My work extends Neil Gross’ theory of the “intellectual self-concept” (ISC) (which focuses on American academics) by introducing the notion of the diaspora intellectual self-concept (DISC). Such concept allows us to include analysis of intellectuals with significant transnational connections who are dealing with racial and ethnic tensions in their new homeland while establishing themselves as professionals and citizens in a new cultural and political context. / Dissertation / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

The thesis analyzes the origins and the formative period of Virginia’s historical marker program. It shows that historical markers were critical to the success of Harry Flood Byrd’s administration and his Commission on Conservation and Development. The thesis also examines how Virginia’s marker program set the standard for roadside commemoration across the entire United States. Lastly, the work appraises the influence of Dr. Hamilton James Eckenrode, his pioneering methods of historical commemoration, and his central role in the success of Virginia’s marker program.

In existence from 1959 to 1965, the Richmond Civil War Centennial Committee was formed for the purpose of planning and executing Richmond’s Civil War centennial commemoration. In this thesis, the author will examine the history of the Richmond Civil War Centennial Committee (RCWCC) and its efforts to develop a new historical narrative of Richmond and the Civil War. This paper will assess Richmond’s previous attempts to commemorate the Civil War and will argue that the RCWCC contributed to the advancement of Richmond’s Civil War narrative by de-emphasizing past Confederate celebration attempts led by heritage groups and advancing a “reconciliation” narrative. Furthermore, this thesis will examine Richmond’s current attempt to commemorate the Civil War sesquicentennial and explore the influence of the RCWCC on this effort. Lastly, this paper will consider the future prospects for Civil War commemoration in Richmond.

Minimalism in contemporary memorial design has been criticised for being meaningless and inappropriate in creating powerful monuments (Long, 2007). However, abstraction in modern art and landscape design can appeal to the human 'subconscious', which inspires design and enriches the experience of viewers and visitors (Jellicoe, 1966, 1970, 1993). This study investigated the meanings and the values that contemporary memorials hold through theoretical and empirical study, by which means of 'collective identity', individual and community engagement are enriched. This notion of engagement in contemporary memorial was examined based on the psychological theories s of 'transaction' (Altman and Rogoff, 1987; Dewey and Bentley, 1949; Pepper, 1942, 1967) and 'personal projects' (Little, 1983). Some other notions, such as 'anti-memorial', 'personalisation' and 'mirroring', drawn from memorial design, environmental psychology and philosophy of art, were discussed in relation to the main theoretical background. Accordingly, this research drew a distinction between the classical memorial, where symbolic representation is viewed in isolation from the viewers and their internal cognition, and the contemporary memorial landscape with its potential for transaction and shared memory, in which a spectator becomes a participant. As memorial design is a complex and multi-layered process, a memorial project for Palestinian displacement was conducted as a complementary part to the main scientific research. It offered a complementary approach to the conventional scientific inquiry, where the research situation is not a problem to be solved, but an enquiry whose problematic situations are characterised by 'uncertainty', 'disorder' and 'indeterminacy' (Schon, 1983). The collection methods for qualitative and quantitative data were observation and behavioural mapping in conjunction with theory of 'affordances' and the 'personal projects' questionnaire of memorial users. Data was collected from three memorial landscapes in London: the Princess Diana Memorial Fountain (PDMF), the 7 July Memorial (7JM) and the John F. Kennedy Memorial (JFKM). They vary in scale, design approach and process. Applying these methods enabled the researcher to attain more insights into memorial behavioural settings and their possible affordances and transactional properties. Key results of the data analysis showed that PDMF had high levels of transaction and a cathartic nature through qualities of playfulness, bodily involvement and social value. While the success of this memorial mainly lay in its cathartic and grieving quality, the ceremonial phallic design of 7JM and the allegorical landscape of JFKM did prove to create successful and powerful memorials through both their didactic and cathartic dimensions. The text and lettering embossed on the design elements helped these to occur simultaneously. The intended outcome of this research was to contribute to the recent development of the way contemporary designers and artists should approach memorial design. This was in the form of design guidelines and statements, which allowed individuals and communities to gain access to what a memorial could symbolise. This could be achieved through memorial physical forms representing different meanings associated with the commemorated subject, and by addressing the memorial design process in relation to both users' perception and designer's intention.