Introduction
Chapter 1: The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe and the
Parque de la Memoria in Historical Context
Chapter 2: Commemorating Absent Bodies
Chapter 3: Self-Indicting Monuments
Chapter 4: Embodied Memory
Chapter 5: Death Tourism and Architourism
Chapter 6: Multitasking Memorials
Conclusion
Brigitte Sion is a post-doctoral researcher affiliated with Columbia University and the MATRICE Research Institute in Paris. She has written extensively on the global politics of memory and commemorative practices, particularly in Germany, Argentina, Cambodia, Poland, and France.
Monuments address the past, but they also have a future, as
Brigitte Sion demonstrates in her thoughtful analysis of two public
memory sites that recall brutal acts of state-run mass terror. This
detailed, thoroughly researched study raises key questions for
considering the afterlife of memorials. Sion attends carefully to
the uniqueness of each memorial, while also teasing out issues
common to both, especially as public spaces dedicated to addressing
a nation’s own past crimes.
*Jeffrey Shandler, Rutgers University*
In the current surge of memory studies, this account of the
Monument to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin and the Park of
Memory in Buenos Aires stands out for its impeccable attention to
detail, sophisticated argument, and incisive style. How do
memorials to victims of state terrorism work; who are they for;
what exactly do they do? The author not only poses these questions;
she answers them. Before your next visit to a commemorative site,
you’ll be glad to have read this book.
*Carol Gluck, Columbia University*
Embodied memory in the absence of bodies—this is the starting point
for Brigitte Sion’s thorough and sensitive analysis of the Monument
to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin and the Parque de la
Memoria in Buenos Aires. Worlds apart, they find common ground in
what has become an almost universal tool box of commemorative
practices. Sion offers a brilliant analysis of those tools and
their deployment in similar yet different situations. By
considering not only the birth of monuments, but also their life
ever after, Sion has made a major contribution to the burgeoning
field of memory studies.
*Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, New York University*
Brigitte Sion has written a smart, synthetic, and eminently
readable multilayered analysis of both commemorative representation
and reception. Grounded in a close study of the largely contrasting
approaches to two major commemorative projects, the Memorial to the
Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin and the Parque de la Memoria in
Buenos Aires, Sion skillfully teases out the ways in which public
art and architecture attempt to satisfy ‘‘the tension between the
absent bodies of victims and the embodied practices of visitors’’
(xiii). Sion brings her multidisciplinary training and her
multilingualism to parse the two cases’ fitful commemorative
processes. She also explores the ways in which different kinds of
visitors respond to the sites.
Memorials in Berlin and Buenos Aires provides adequate historical
context, both about the countries themselves and in terms of the
evolution of the memorial form. Sion then conceptualizes each
memorial as a performance site in which form and meaning, and
mourning and tourism are at play with those who are absent due to
violence and those who are now present as visitors. Each chapter
interweaves description and analysis of the two sites, which makes
for a dynamic and fluid read.
*The Public Historian*
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