Preview

Smithsonian Website- History & Memory Essay Example

Powerful Essays
Open Document
Open Document
2749 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Smithsonian Website- History & Memory Essay Example
Analyse and evaluate how the Smithsonian National Museum of American History September 11 Website and ONE related text of your choosing represent history and memory in unique and evocative ways

Good Morning teachers and students, my name is Lala Smith, and I’d like to share and address to you my own personal understanding as both a composer and responder, of history, memory and their representations. Standing here before you, I will elaborate further into the relationship of both factors and explore the plethora of challenges that the linkage presents with the inclusion of two examples. It’s true what they say you know… there are three sides to a story… history, memory and the truth.

Due to the fact that we are traditionally and culturally led to believe that history is, at its best, an unbiased account of truth and the past, we as people determine it as inflexible and objective collection of documented accounts and evidence. Represented as evidential sources that are reliable, history has however been challenged and questioned, as it is now a result of choice and preconceived outcomes. History records the big events; memory fills in the spaces and tells us, what the event was like. Granting personal perspectives that may possibly be a flawed interpretation of events, memory is evidence that can be distorted by emotions, influenced by suggestion and interpreted differently in terms of context. Triggered by small incidents, waves of sounds or connected to physical objects, memory is a process that can be recalled and kept in mind. Amongst the many texts that significantly display and contribute to increasing the difficulties in distinguishing the two, the American Smithsonian 9/11 Website & the Sydney Jewish Museum is relevantly the most intriguing.

Exhibiting, memorialising and remembering the victims who perished in result of the tragic and emotionally charged events that affected the world, both the website and museum evoke and emerge emotional

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    I would like to introduce to you today the concept of history and memory, and how these ideas can change from either individual to individual, or have a changing presence throughout time. History and memory are independent concepts, but largely rely on each other to interpret the full meaning behind a certain event. History can be anything that has helped shaped the world we live in today, and is generally based upon factual evidence and recordings. However, memories are the opinions created by each person and are normally subject to our own personal bias .…

    • 1329 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    This book takes the horrible story of September 11, 2001 to a new level of understanding. This changed my whole field- from watching and hearing about the horrible event on television- to actually getting the perspective from someone inside the flaming debris field. Every page is filled with a heart-pounding and a heart-wrenching moment. To have to choose one particular incident that stuck out to me the most would defiantly be hard to decide.…

    • 435 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    The date of September 11, 2001 is a date that possesses great significance globally. To most, it is remembered as one of the greatest tragedies of Western Civilisation. The Smithsonian Museum and their representation of the tragedy, 9/11, makes apparent how one’s personal experience to a particular situation, fabricates what is considered ‘history’. On the home page, colouring is used in ‘September 11’ in which red is the predominant colour, connotating to bloodshed and suffering. This technique is implemented to shape a saddened response, even to those unaffected by the event. Furthermore, in ‘objects on view: World Trade Centre’, the inclusion of the fire fighter doll, starkly juxtaposing with the other objects on show, heavily evokes empathy through its connotations to a young child, suffering. The empathy drawn from such an object is what is most wholly remembered by those who respond to the site, materializing that individuals understanding of ‘factual history’. Again, one’s interpretation of history is formulated through the ‘Missing Persons Material’. The image constructs a more intimate relationship with the man, and is supplemented by emotive language describing how ‘sadly, Jeff was never found alive’. The emotive language further deepens the respondent’s sense of empathy felt for those affected by ‘9/11’, and generates a deplored perception of what is believed to be history. Finally, one’s personal belief of the history of ‘9/11’ is concreted through the photo of ‘Lorraine Bay’s’ log book in ‘objects on view: Shanksville’. Again, red colouring is strategically implemented by the Smithsonian Museum to evoke feelings of fear, further portraying the agonizing circumstances of the day. The log book provides stronger insight into ‘Lorraine’s’ personal life, strengthening the audiences connection with the individual and engendering the feelings of compassion. It is this evocative presentation of the website…

    • 548 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    2009: Analyse the ways history and memory generate compelling and unexpected insights The study of the past, in the present, and how it shapes our future is what history is defined as. Through collective and individual memory, one can perceive a greater insight. In developing such texts, composers utilize filmic and textual forms to achieve their specific point of view. The Queen (2006) by Stephen Frears, is a biopic which combines representations of the queens both as the regal monarch, and as the head of a family to connote the value of personal memory intertwining with recorded history, constructing powerful yet unknown responses from the audience. Similarly, the Biggest Hit (2012) is Good Weekend Feature Article (SMH, JULY) which combines…

    • 949 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    History, and the representation of the past in any form is almost always controversial and political. For the 9/11 Memorial Museum, remembering and commemorating 9/11 is political because of the vast array of parties that have some stake in the tragedy. Due to the web of viewpoints, a Museum Memorial, in theory, as Williams theorized, “provide a public forum for discussion” (p. 233). The 9/11 Memorial Museum, perhaps in an effort to appear above the politics, made little to no mention of the global aftermath to the attacks and such changes in the U.S like the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Such context is a key part of “public forum” and by just honoring the memory of the dead, the Memorial Museum is failing to be a place that can evolve to examine the effects of 9/11 on the country and the globe.…

    • 1738 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Also, Pulido discusses erasure much in the same manner that Gonzalez-Day does. Both authors believe that ignorance towards history, specifically violent history, is an injustice towards the victims and the survivors of the past. Their main argument is that history cannot at any costs be forgotten or ignored because it is an integral part of life, even in today’s society.…

    • 1922 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Learning to deal with, and share the memories from a lifetime ago is important. “The communities of memory that tie us to past also turn us toward the future as communities of hope,”2 Bellah explains. By remembering the past we see the pain, the misfortune, the danger, and the list could go on and on; but we also see hope for a better tomorrow. Recalling the bad, while looking at a problem facing the present, reminds us we are stronger than we think. Just as the communities each of us live in faced hardship to get to the place they are now, they will face even more, but are stronger now than they were at the beginning. This is because, “… collective memory is a source of social strength.”3 The strength of the nation, city,…

    • 676 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    History and memory both provide adequate insights into the past, but it is through the consideration and combination of the two that compelling and unexpected insights are generated. After having analysed and studied a selection of poems from Denise Levertov’s anthology ‘Freeing of the Dust’ and ‘Millicent’s Story’, which is an extract from the ‘Report of the National Inquiry into the separation of Aboriginal children from their families’ it has become apparent to me that…

    • 829 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    More than a decade after the September 11 terrorist attack, it took a lengthy period for the United States to get over the shock of such a bitter blow, and healed from it. Whereas this week's readings have associations for that catastrophe, and tells the facts of the case.…

    • 457 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    History and memory does generate compelling and unexpected insights, and this is explicitly conveyed and explored in the Smithsonian website created by the American government, as well as in How to Tell a True War Story by Tim O’Brien. History is the compilation of events and peoples perspective in events, all meshed up into a montage to create a definitive account of events. Both texts demonstrate the fact that history and memory are directly linked, and memories of history are perceptions tainted an emotional aspect. Ultimately history and memory are conveyed as existing in an intrinsic relationship that compose both collective and individual experiences.…

    • 321 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Historical memory is a method used by individuals to alter historical events depending on the current events that are occurring in the country. History is altered to historical memory through the usage of narratives, symbols, collective memory, and print capitalism. Historical memory is a state-sponsored interpretation of a particular past event, individual, place, or ideal that state leaders and intellectuals link to the present through a series of narratives and symbols (Rossi, 856). Historical memory is a state-sponsored interpretation of a particular past event, individual, place, or ideal that state leaders and intellectuals link to the present through a series of narratives and symbols (Rossi, 856). Historical memory connect the histories,…

    • 1244 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Memory Informative Speech

    • 515 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Today I would like to explore how memory brings history alive and how successfully it is achieved in Mark Baker’s novel The Fiftieth Gate. Memory brings history alive and helps history to live on. History validates memory however it lacks personal experience and emotions. Memory gives a human face to history and confronts people with a subjective recollection of events. Throughout the book, Mark Baker retells his parents and his grandparent’s ordeal during the Holocaust. The purpose of this book was to remove the blackness from his family’s dark past and redefine his history as well as to remove the burden from his children that he was left with as a child. Mark Baker masterfully created…

    • 515 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Our memory serves a source for us to remember our past as well as being respectful by paying homage to all the lives lost during such a horrific era. . Memory of activities is powerful and for holocaust is sad story that today can be used to show the evils of racial discrimination, cold blood murder and the importance of living together as one community in love and harmony (Nguyen, 2013). An event such as the Holocaust we must remember when passing stories down that having ethical remembrance is vital. This means separating what really happened and a biased opinion of what we believed happened. We must not give information those sides with one more than the other. Having a forgiving mind is important because at that time these events were presumed to be politically correct. Let our hearts and minds not form a hatred for a group of people because of the…

    • 748 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    When it comes to America’s history, I believe there is much to be said that often is left out. Much of this I can reference back to a class that I was fortunate enough to take at Rutgers as a junior, Politics and Culture. The class had a very interesting aspect, which concerned historical memory. Historical memory can be defined as state sponsored collective memory. In order to understand this concept it is important to first understand the concept of collective memory. Collective memory is the emotional quality that is given to past events. It is not so much history based on fact, but instead how a certain society remembers their history. Essentially historical memory is a collection of narratives about the past that state-sponsored elites turn into non-negotiable facts, such as the way Loewe critiques the textbooks provided to students. These students then in turn take what the professor teaches and the textbook preaches at face value as absolute fact, essentially eradicating the possibility for negotiation and debate.…

    • 528 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Essay on 9/11 Memorial

    • 643 Words
    • 3 Pages

    While standing at the memorial, I closed my eyes while looking up a twin towers. I invisionalize the airplanes crashing into the top of the towers. The sky appeared to turn overcast as if it was a severe thunder storm brewing. It started to rain white ashes with various sounds occuring in the background. Some of the sounds I imagined hearing were sirens, horn honking, shouting, foot steps running, sounds of bricks collasping and tremendous grief .…

    • 643 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays