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"Where were you when...?" : the interaction of the personal and the historical in the Challenger explosion

This thesis explores the problems associated with an individual's interpretation of historical events; especially through a question such as "Where were you when you heard the news of the Challenger explosion?" Remembering an event in this manner implies that both a physical and temporal distance exists between an individual watching from afar and the event in question. This distance indicates that the event is never transparent nor is its meaning self-evident; it unfolds over time and is rendered almost incomprehensible through the proliferation of language and discourse surrounding the event, the fragmentary nature of its remnants, and the fallibility of both individual memory and the historical record. But instead of making the event meaningless, notions of 'distance' and 'incomprehensibility' provide a space where an event's meaning is most understandable for an individual. Beginning with Wittgenstein's Tractatus and ending with Barthes' A Lover's Discourse, I would like to show how little separates the philosopher attempting to understand the world, the historian interpreting the historical record, the amorous subject deciphering the signs and gestures of an absent or unattainable lover, and the individual remembering a historical event.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.28255
Date January 1998
CreatorsClearwater, David A.
ContributorsKaite, Berkeley (advisor)
PublisherMcGill University
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Formatapplication/pdf
CoverageMaster of Arts (Graduate Communications Program.)
RightsAll items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated.
Relationalephsysno: 001642347, proquestno: MQ43848, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest.

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