Repurposing the Ruin to Remember

Multimodal Rhetoric and Cultural Memory in the Post-Soviet Memorial Museum

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2409147
AutoresMarcia Clare Allison (0000-0002-0039-5511)
Ano2022
Volume22
Fascículo6
Páginas576-592
Data de publicação2022-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoCulture Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 1532-7086 • E-ISSN: 1552-356X
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/15327086221093552
OpenAlexW4283522631
IdiomaEN
Referências citadas76

The memory turn in the humanities has been crucial for understanding the rhetorical work memorials and museums perform for the state. However, the postmodern development of the hybrid memorial museum remains underexamined as a unique rhetorical artifact. In this article, I combine postmodern museology with material rhetoric and multimodal argumentation to critique the particular trend of repurposing historical buildings from the commemorated moment in question into the physical memorial museum itself. Building from previous literature exploring juxtaposition as argument, I contend that repurposing ruins into memorial museums uses authenticity to create a kisceral rhetorical juxtaposition between the ruin's former and current life as an argumentative strategy. Such work thus makes the repurposed memorial museum both a container and rhetorical object of memory. To exemplify this, I perform a rhetorical critique in situ of the Memorial Museum of the German Division of Marienborn ( Gedenkstätte Deutsche Teilung Marienborn [GDTM]): a former East German border crossing. I show how GDTM leverages its architectural authenticity through this Janus-faced juxtaposition to curate cultural memory discourses regarding German unification. In conclusion, I posit how further post-Soviet infrastructures and other repurposed memorial museums offer a critical rhetoric that in our political climes is never more needed

Art · Art history · Linguistics · Repurposing · Rhetoric · Cultural Heritage Management and Preservation · Engineering · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Rhetoric and Communication Studies · History · Philosophy