Commemorations, Monuments and Public Memory

Humanities Research Centre, ANU, Canberra
2-4 August 2005

The call for papers for this conference attracted an extraordinary amount of interest. More than three times as many papers were offered than were expected. Given that we had taken a decision to have all plenary sessions the selection process was thus particularly difficult and many wonderfully interesting offers were refused.

The embarrassment of riches convinced us of the need to make this conference the first in a series of events as part of the HRC’s research platforms. It also meant that the program was packed with a tremendous variety of papers on a range of subjects given by presenters – local and international - from a range of disciplines.

The interest in the call for papers was evident again in the registrations for the conference itself and on opening morning the Conference Room in Old Canberra House was filled to capacity.

Over the next three days we heard many excellent papers: from Michael Levine’s opening reflections on what is a good monument to Kate Douglas’s insight into the role of life narratives in the migration museum in Adelaide; from Alex Tyrrell’s invitation to share a front row seat at a battle of the monuments in the Scottish highlands to Sian Supski’s investigation of an Australian cultural icon, the Anzac biscuit; from Daniel McInerney’s exploration of the evolving science of mnemonics in antebellum America to Lisa Murray’s forensic examination of funerary trends and popular culture in nineteenth century New South Wales; from Peter Read and Marivic Wyndham’s poignant comparison of the different fates of the Buena Vista Social Club and the Havana Biltmore Yacht and Country Club in post-revolutionary Cuba to Stephen Heathorn’s insight into the behind-the-scenes role of a civil servant in the erection of monuments in London; from Jennifer Steenshorne’s expose of the politics of street names in New York to Robert Markley’s study of the commemoration of common sailors in the eighteenth century.

With Anne Riggs we went on an artist’s tour of the Western Front; with Jonathan White we walked down the mall in Washington to view the Korean War Memorial (and listen to the political rhetoric of the 1950s that sounded remarkably familiar in 2005). Christopher Wilson gave us an overview of the funerary architecture of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk and located it within Ankara’s townscape (and pointed to the contrast between the Turkish capital and Canberra) and Sabine Marschall explored the monumental landscape of post-Apartheid South Africa. Colin Long pondered the significance of anti-Communist iconoclasm in the 1990s and Laurence Gourievidis explored the use of Hebridean Cairns to tell stories embedded in modern concerns. Among so many excellent contributions a particular highlight was provided by Barbara Diefendorf who rediscovered the significance of the discreet statue of Gaspard de Coligny, the murdered leader of France’s Protestants, on Paris’s bustling Rue de Rivoli, and explored representations of the St Bartholomew’s massacre over the past 400 years.

Amidst the vast array of subject matter there were clusters of papers on particular themes. Jenny MacLeod and Bill Taylor examined war memorials in Edinburgh and Melbourne respectively; Lynn Paxon and John Burton explored the contested memorialisation of war, frontier violence and Native American resistance; Andrew Beattie, Anne Rothe, Hsiu-Ling Kuo and Jeffry Diefendorf gave papers on competitive remembrance in post-war and post unification Germany; and Clare Robinson and Judith Dupré gave evocative and moving papers on the aftermath of 9/11.

Another highlight in the program – despite the chill of a Canberra winter – was the evening visit to the Australian War Memorial. We were treated to a tour and informative presentation on several features of the memorial, including a private viewing of the Hall of Memory, graced as it is by the Tomb of the Unknown soldier, Napier Waller’s stained glass windows and mosaics and Janet Lawrence’s stunning four pillar sculpture representing earth, air, fire and water. We also enjoyed the hospitality of one Canberra’s most important cultural institutions.

Over the course of three long days there were several common themes and insights that emerged from the papers. The first was methodological. It became clear that the study of commemoration and public memory through monuments, architecture, material culture and other forms of commemoration is a subject that is particularly amenable to an inter-disciplinary approach. Students of history, architecture, cultural studies, politics, literature, heritage and art had a common language to speak. The second relates to time. It is clear from many of the papers that the timing of a commemoration is crucial to its place in public memory: its original meaning and the intention of those who erected it might well be quickly forgotten but it can be rediscovered and reinterpreted again and again. The difficulties of memorialising fraught episodes in the very recent past were strongly evident. Other issues to emerge included the changing attitudes to war memorials and the problems that they raise in the postmodern world, and the fundamental change from the memorial as a commemoration of the ‘great and good’ to the inclusive memorial that rescues ignored stories and subaltern groups.

Numerous participants commented that the Conference gained momentum and sustained common purpose which underscored the value of plenary sessions. Several presenters lamented that more time had not been set aside for general discussion although they recognised that this would have meant fewer papers.

Undoubtedly many of the papers will quickly find their way into print and a collected volume of essays based on a selection of papers is planned.