20th century american culture
A01=Marita Sturken
aids epidemic
aids quilt
american culture
american society
Author_Marita Sturken
camera
Category=JBCC
Category=JBCT
Category=JHMC
Category=NHK
challenger explosion
community
condemnation of war
cultural comfort
cultural memory
discourse of healing
discourse of sacrifice
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
eq_society-politics
fantasy
hero
honor
kennedy assassination
memory formation
nation
national wailing wall
persian gulf war
political events
politics of remembering
reenactment in memory
rodney king beating
survivors
trauma
vietnam veterans memorial
vietnam war
Product details
- ISBN 9780520206205
- Weight: 499g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 28 Feb 1997
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Paperback
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Analyzing the ways U.S. culture has been formed and transformed in the 80s and 90s by its response to the Vietnam War and the AIDS epidemic, Marita Sturken argues that each has disrupted our conventional notions of community, nation, consensus, and 'American culture.' She examines the relationship of camera images to the production of cultural memory, the mixing of fantasy and reenactment in memory, the role of trauma and survivors in creating cultural comfort, and how discourses of healing can smooth over the tensions of political events. Sturken's discussion encompasses a brilliant comparison of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the AIDS Quilt; her profound reading of the Memorial as a national wailing wall - one whose emphasis on the veterans and war dead has allowed the discourse of heroes, sacrifice, and honor to resurface at the same time that it is an implicit condemnation of war - is particularly compelling. The book also includes discussions of the Kennedy assassination, the Persian Gulf War, the Challenger explosion, and the Rodney King beating.
While debunking the image of the United States as a culture of amnesia, Sturken also shows how remembering itself is a form of forgetting, and how exclusion is a vital part of memory formation.
Marita Sturken is Assistant Professor at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Southern California.
