Memorial Mania: An Interview with Erika Doss

Erika Doss is Chair of the American Studies Department at The University of Notre Dame.  She is the author of many books, including Benton, Pollock, and the Politics of Modernism: From Regionalism to Abstract Expressionism (1991), Elvis Culture: Fans, Faith, and Image (1999), and Looking at Life Magazine (editor, 2001).  Doss’s latest book Memorial Mania: Public Feeling in America, published by the University of Chicago Press, explores “the cultural, social, and political conditions that inform today’s urgent feelings about history and memory. “ Memorial Mania is an insightful, and timely, study charting the frenzied and extreme—hence manic—American obsession with commemoration, particularly as it’s practiced today.  Doss argues that memorials underscore our national obsession with issues of memory and history; suggesting the construction of public memorials is a manifestation of our desires to define memory and write history.  Doss traces the boom in memorial building since 1995, along the way providing thoughtful observations about the way we construct (or deconstruct) history through the building of public memorials. 

Doss spoke with me about her project.   

Camera Obscura: You’ve been working on the book for awhile and looking over your CV, it’s clear that you have an interest in memory and American culture. Did anything in particular drive you to write this book? Were there any particular events that struck a motivating chord? 

Doss: I’ve been working on public art and public culture for sometime – reading about and following increasing number of monuments. Some of this was observation from walking around and looking at the monuments themselves.  I didn’t want to do it not another book about public art controversy since I’ve already written about that.  I was more interested in how memorials are redefining American forms of democracy.  I had the title first and I was essentially working from the title, trying to figure out what I meant by that, taking apart the concept of “mania.”  I don’t use the term to imply a crazy dimension but to argue consideration of public culture in terms of public feeling.  The title may be spectacular but the book considers dynamics of public feeling.

I looked at memorials specifically to get a handle on a project, and then furthered the discussion from memorials themselves by discussing memory versus history. I really see the development of a “memorial industry,” and that’s what I wanted to explore.    

CO: You found some really… interesting memorials (I was struck by the absurdity of the Victims of Communism Memorial).  You make the convincing case that since 1995 we’ve been collectively engaged in a frenzy of building memorials. Could you explain to readers why this need has reemerged within the American discourse?

Doss: I think that we need to think historically: statuemania in both Europe and the United States has historical precedence.  There are, of course, differences.  Statuemania is about nationalism (for example, France’s Third Republic used statues to unify the French public), something similar happened in the United States, after the Civil War, etc.  It’s part of assimilation of the diversity of Americans.  By contrast Memorial Mania willingly engaged in complicated look at American history.  That history is not always a succession of victories . I’m thinking about memorials to people of colour and to loss. The construction of those memorials is essentially a citizenship claim.  The Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial will be dedicated this summer, and I think it says a lot about who we need to include as Americans worthy of being memorialized on the National Mall.  Memorials are a way of claiming citizenship status, a part of the historical construction of citizenship which is a continual debate.

I enjoyed the diversity of the project and was astonished by how much is out there and how much continues to be built.  Even now, there’s a controversy in Indianapolis over a proposed [Emancipation] memorial by Fred Wilson because the memorial is a figure of dissent -  it’s not heroic.  There is no public agreement about the nature of history, i.e. dissent vs. heroic.  [Note: Since speaking to Doss, the proposed Wilson memorial has been suspended].

CO: In Memorial Mania you argue that memorial culture in America today is particularly “excessive, frenzied, and extreme,” and you focus on the affective investment in the contemporary debate over public space.  Do you see our contemporary debate as a rupture from past practices?  Do you think Jurgen Habermas’s vision of rational debate ever existed, or do you see it more as an utopian (ideal) destination that's no longer plausible?

Doss: No, I think Habermas’s theory is a theory.  But, I think there are moments in the ebb and flow of American history where we’re more interested in rational discussions about history and memory.  For example, the 1970s when there was so much chaos that people were willing to come to some point of unity and solidarity. There have been democratic moments, but nothing recently.  James Young documents the more rational debate in Berlin on the making of the Holocaust Memorial. 

I’d like to see this idea of rational debate as realistic, but now I don’t think we can get around the table anymore.  This is an excessively angry period.  Ground Zero is an example of that, the continuing public anger and rancor.

CO: The debates over public sites today are, as you argue, particularly fraught (especially the 9/11 Memorial, Park51, etc.).  Do you think this particularly rancorous “debate” is central to our political moment?  I’m thinking that there’s no small coincidence between the anger displayed by Park51 protesters (and certain 9/11 family members) and the debate that we’re having over American citizenship. 

Doss: It’s a different country from what it was nine years ago. People are still angry.  There is a really small group of people who drive the debate and who can manipulate media and mass culture. I don’t want to discount the horror of 9/11, but anger is not a productive emotion in the memorialisation of the 3,000 people who died on 9/11.  Our country needs constructive and creative ideas.  The debate is incredibly affective and the media made more of a spectacle by refusing to understand that this isn’t a shrine but a diverse center.  Public art has always been the fall guy of whatever political or economic argument it can be put into. 

CO: There seems to be a radical political divide among Americans today, and as you argue, that’s one of many reasons the framing of commemoration is so central to debates over identity and the politics of representation.  You discuss that pretty thoroughly in your book, touching on the various kinds of memorials we construct (i.e. gratitude memorials, shame memorials, etc.). Could you comment on the relationship between political identity and the “kinds” of memorials it produces?

Doss: Certainly, the emotional conditions are incredibly important and this could have been a much longer book. I could have written a chapter on pleasure or joy memorials.  Gratitude and shame seem to be the overwhelming emotions.  War memorials are a way to say “thank you”. Gratitude is part of how we feel in public, or how we’re expected to feel.  Shame memorials are not necessarily about guilt and the shaming discourse, but rather about “shameful” moments in our history—monuments dedicated to racial terrorism and the ongoing legacy of race contradictions fit into the shame category. 

I constructed the book as groups of memorials situated within particular aspects and conditions.  I wanted Memorial Mania to be a stepping-stone, to invite readers to have a dialogue with the book and do their own work.  I encourage readers to think about memorial culture and the affective conditions that inform it.  Public feeling is crucial when thinking about this.  How do audiences shape what they make?

CO: On a lighter note, I understand you’re currently working on a new book – can you tell us about it? 

Doss: I’m always working on a book! Right now, I’m working on two projects.  I’m thinking about the divide between religion and modernism in twentieth century America and I’m interested also in cultural vandalism – memorial destruction – which I reference in the book.  I want to think about moments of vandalism in memorial history, to somehow theorize destruction.