1st Edition

War Memory and Commemoration

By Brad West Copyright 2017
    214 Pages 9 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    216 Pages 9 B/W Illustrations
    by Routledge

    In a period characterised by an unprecedented cultural engagement with the past, individuals, groups and nations are debating and experimenting with commemoration in order to find culturally relevant ways of remembering warfare, genocide and terrorism.

    This book examines such remembrances and the political consequences of these rites. In particular, the volume focuses on the ways in which recent social and technological forces, including digital archiving, transnational flows of historical knowledge, shifts in academic practice, changes in commemorative forms and consumerist engagements with history affect the shaping of new collective memories and our understanding of the social world. 

    Presenting studies of commemorative practices from Africa, Asia, Australia, Europe and the Middle East, War Memory and Commemoration illustrates the power of new commemorative forms to shape the world, and highlights the ways in which social actors use them in promoting a range of understandings of the past. The volume will appeal to scholars of sociology, history, cultural studies and journalism with an interest in commemoration, heritage and/or collective memory.

    1. War Commemoration and the Expansion of the Past (Brad West)

    Part 1: War Travels

    2. ‘It was like swimming through history": Tourist Moments at Gallipoli (Jim McKay and Serhat Harman)

    3. Western Tourism and Dialogical Remembering of the American War in Vietnam (Brad West)

    4. Battlefield Tourism in Singapore: National Narratives and the State (Kevin Blackburn)

    Part 2: Commemoration and Eventness

    5. Dawn Servers: Anzac Day 2015 and Hyper-Connective Commemoration (Tom Sear)

    6. The Gallipoli Centenary: An International Perspective (Jenny Macleod)

    7. 100 Days of Butchering: (Re)Presenting the Rwandan Genocide 20 Years On (Katrina Jaworski)

    8. Journalists and War Commemoration: Outlining Alternative Practices (Sharon Mascall-Dare)

    Part 3: Genre and the Re-writing of War

    9. Unconstrained by Accuracy: Commemorating the Khan Younis Massacre through a Comic (Jeanne-Marie Viljoen)

    10. Broadening the Cultural Memory of War: Travel Writing (Ben Stubbs)

    11. Reporting WWII North Africa: Disrupting Colonialism and Orientalism in Moorehead’s The Desert War (Peter Bishop)

    12. Anniversaries and Production of Fiction: Gallipoli (Azer Banu Kemaloğlu)

    Biography

    Brad West is an Associate Professor in the School of Communication, International Studies and Languages at the University of South Australia. He is the author of Re-enchanting Nationalisms: Rituals and Remembrances in a Postmodern Age (2015).