Breaking the silence”

Content warning: Sexual violence. In 2020, the first permanent memorial to survivors of sexual violence was unveiled in Minneapolis, Minnesota. This essay utilizes rhetorical fieldwork to explore how the Survivors Memorial addresses a cultural crypt that silences survivors and erases sexual violence in public memory. I argue that the memorial disrupts the individuation and privatization of sexual violence to name sexual violence as a cultural trauma. In testifying to cultural trauma, the Survivors Memorial transforms individuals into witnesses. Witnessing facilitates survivors’ attunement to personal trauma and calls for memorial visitors to break the silence of rape culture.

MEDLINE · Narrative · Perspective (graphical · Poison control · Historical and Cultural Archaeology Studies · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Oral History, Memory, Narrative Analysis