Strategies of redemption at the Vietnam veterans’ memorial

Public memory and private grief: The construction of shrines at the sites of public tragedy

“…21 Visitors continued to leave a wide assortment of objects at the wall: flags, medals, poetry, discharge papers, teddy bears, drawings. 22 In their study of the objects left at the wall, archived since 1985 by the National Park Service, Carlson and Hocking show "how visitors are made rhetors by the power of the Memorial." 23 By the addition of these personal objects, the memorial's focus shifted from official statements about patriotism, valor, and the survival of freedom to a vernacular focus on those individuals who did not survive the war.…”

“…As Carlson and Hocking said of those who bring objects to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, those who join in the construction of these spontaneous shrines are also "rhetorical pilgrims." 4 Both the objects that compose these shrines and the choice of site itself may be read as rhetorical strategies used as part of a national (and, in some cases, international) healing process. In this essay, we will use a method of analogic criticism to examine the rhetorical aspects of these spontaneous shrines.…”

Communication, Liminality, and Hope: The September 11th Missing Person Posters

“…Scholars have shown how vernacular shrines and memorials appearing after sudden and devastating death operate rhetorically by maintaining continuity with the deceased and fulfilling the ''formulaic pattern of symbolic action for ordering or controlling relatively disorderly or uncontrollable situations'' (T. Turner, 1977, pp. 61-62; see also Blair, Jeppeson, & Pucci, 1999;Bodnar, 1992;Browne, 1995;Carlson & Hocking, 1988;Earp & Lanzilotti, 1998;Grider, 2002;Haney, Leimer, & Lowery, 1997;Kennerly, 2002; Communication, Liminality, and Hope 107 Savage, 1994;Van Gennep, 1960;Winter, 1995). However, whereas memorials and shrines respond to an exigency of ''he=she is dead and gone and I grieve,'' the MPPs were a rhetorical response to an exigency of ''I don't know for certain if he=she is dead or not.''…”

“Making waves” with burke: Surf Nazi culture and the rhetoric of localism

“…The first strand concerns the guilt-purification-redemption cycle, focusing on the redemptive strategies of scapegoating and mortification (Carlson & Hocking, 1988;Rueckert, 1963). The second strand concerns the analysis of "culture, myth, and ideology as public argument" (Balthrop, 1984, p. 339).…”