This dissertation explores a turn toward strategic public memories in the gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and queer (GLBTQ) community. While GLBTQ people have long used memories to influence and persuade heterosexual audiences, these memories have largely been what Michel de Certeau labels tactical - fleeting, ephemeral texts built upon the detritus of dominant culture. In contrast, GLBTQ people increasingly deploy strategic memories that endure heterosexual forgetting, persist through time, and exert greater control in spaces of power. In four case studies, I examine the possibilities and pitfalls of the strategic turn for securing greater GLBTQ rights. The first case study examines the Alexander Wood statue and how gays and lesbians have used material rhetorics like commemorative sites to make their memories durable and to resist heteronormative forgetting. While highlighting Woods "official" meaning, I also demonstrate how both traditionalist and camp viewers of the statue contest that meaning through performative viewing practices. The second case study, on counterpublic memories of bias crime victim Matthew Shepard, illustrates how counterpublic memories can oscillate between public spheres. In doing so, vernacular memories of Shepard seek to replace dominant memories that obscure systemic antigay violence, endow Shepard with "saintly" qualities, and limit diverse imagining of GLBTQ identity. The third case study, featuring efforts to include GLBT people into California public school curriculums, examines how advocates use a "rhetoric of contribution" to align GLBT people with the strategic rhetoric of American nationalism. This case also highlights the difficult choices marginalized groups must often make to enter strategic spaces, including "strategic forgettings" that render much of the GLBT past incomplete. The final case study details gay and lesbian rhetorical acts to ensure they are remembered as queer in the future. Examining two prominent death displays - Leonard Matlovichs Gay Vietnam Veterans Memorial and Patricia Cronins Memorial to a Marriage - this chapter argues that both marked and unmarked strategies are required to disrupt the reterritorialization of gay and lesbian identity after death. This dissertation concludes by looking at George Segal's Gay Liberation statue, reviewing the value of the strategic turn, and pondering the future of queer public memory.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:PITT/oai:PITTETD:etd-04212011-154650 |
| Date | 08 June 2011 |
| Creators | Dunn, Thomas R. |
| Contributors | Kirk Savage, John Lyne, Ronald J. Zboray, Lester Olson |
| Publisher | University of Pittsburgh |
| Source Sets | University of Pittsburgh |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.pitt.edu/ETD/available/etd-04212011-154650/ |
| Rights | restricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to University of Pittsburgh or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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