Re-Collection: A Proposal for Refining the Study of Collective Memory and its Places

Communication Theory ISSN 1050-3293

ORIGINAL ARTICLE

Re-Collection: A Proposal for Refining theStudy of Collective Memory and its Places

Roger C. Aden1, Min Wha Han1, Stephanie Norander2, Michael E. Pfahl3,Timothy P. Pollack, Jr.1, & Stephanie L. Young4

1 School of Communication Studies, Ohio University, Athens OH 457012 Department of Communication, Missouri State University, Springfield MO 658973 School of Recreation and Sport Sciences, Ohio University, Athens OH 457014 Department of Communication Studies, University of Southern Indiana, Evansville In 47712

This article outlines a theory of re-collection as a means of enhancing and enriching thestudy of collective memory. Re-collection seeks to generate insights into two underdevelopedthreads of collective memory research: (a) its processual and dynamic nature and (b) itslargely emplaced character. In particular, this article argues that places of memory arenot finished texts, but sites of re-collection in which individuals and groups selectively culland organize re-collected versions of the past. Grounded in Michael McGee’s concept ofrhetorical fragments, the theory of re-collection involves attending to discursive fragmentsof memory that circulate within and around the memory site—as well as the fragmentsbrought to the site by individuals and collectives. Re-collection thus requires analyticaltools beyond those traditionally used in rhetorical criticism—as is illustrated in a casestudy proposal for exploring the process of re-collection surrounding the Space Window inWashington National Cathedral.

doi:10.1111/j.1468-2885.2009.01345.x

Collective memory scholarship in communication has taught us much about howwe remember and make use of the past. Contemporary communication scholars,observes Blair (2006) in her concise review of the subject, ‘‘have understood memoryas significant to virtually all forms of communication practice’’ (p. 51). Much of thiswork is understandably rooted in the rhetorical traditions of the communicationfield. Collective memory, after all, is publicly shared and negotiated through symbols,a process that lies at the heart of what constitutes rhetorical theory. ‘‘Indeed, thestudy of memory is largely one of the rhetoric of memories,’’ asserts Kendall Phillipsin the introduction to his 2004 book, Framing Public Memory. He continues: ‘‘Theways memories attain meaning, compel others to accept them, and are themselves

Corresponding author: Roger C. Aden; e-mail: [email protected] are listed in alphabetical order.

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contested, subverted, and supplanted by other memories are essentially rhetorical’’(pp. 2–3).

Although the insights into collective memory that have been generated byrhetorical approaches are legion, we believe that these approaches—and the insightsthat are derived from them—can be enhanced by stretching the boundaries ofcollective memory studies in communication to more fully include scholarlytraditions outside of rhetorical criticism. In so doing, we can attend to twounderdeveloped threads of collective memory research: (a) its processual and dynamicnature and (b) its largely emplaced character.1

First, although scholars refer to collective memory as ‘‘both a concept andactivity’’ (Zelizer, 1995, p. 214)—most rhetorical work treats collective memory asa product2 —an understandable tendency given that ‘‘memory’’ is a noun while itsverb form of ‘‘remembering’’ is only implied by the subject’s name. If we want tomore thoroughly understand the processes involved in how collectives remember, asZelizer (1995) encourages us to do, we must devote more attention to the essentiallyrhetorical activity of remembering the past. Olick and Robbins (1998) offer a similarargument as they urge their fellow sociologists to attend to ‘‘mnemonic practices’’rather than ‘‘collective memory.’’

Second, French scholar Nora’s (1989, 1984/1996) exceptional work on the waysin which collective memory is emplaced, in sites both physical and imagined, pointsto the value of exploring how such emplacement shapes our understanding of thepast.3 As Casey (2004) bluntly asserts, ‘‘public memory needs a place of enactment,a scene of instantiation’’ (p. 38). Notably, an orientation toward emplacement canalso help us focus on the processes of remembering the past, for as Massey (1994)observes, places are constantly in process. So, while a number of excellent studies incommunication have thoughtfully examined places of memory such as museums andmemorials as rhetorical texts (e.g., Blair, 1999, 2006; Blair, Jeppeson, & Pucci, 1991;Blair & Michel, 1999, 2000, 2001; Carlson & Hocking, 1988; Dickinson, Ott, & Aoki,2005, 2006; Ehrenhaus, 1988a, 1988b; Foss, 1986; Gallagher, 1995; Hasian, 2004;Jorgensen-Earp & Lanzilotti, 1998; Prosise, 1998, 2003),4 these memory places arealso sites where individual members of the remembering collectives experience—andinteract with—the rhetorical representations of the past. Some rhetorical work hasexplored memory places as ‘‘experiential landscapes’’ (Dickinson et al., 2006, p. 29),but only from the perspective of the scholar-as-visitor (e.g., Armada, 1998; Dickinsonet al., 2005, 2006; Hasian, 2004; Prosise, 2003). In notable exceptions, scholars havebolstered their analyses of the memory place with observations of other visitors(Blair & Michel, 1999, 2000; Ehrenhaus, 1988a), used visitor experiences as a smallsupplement to their rhetorical analysis (Carlson & Hocking, 1988), or focusedprimarily upon visitor discourses from an ethnographic orientation (Katriel, 1994).

The work referenced in the preceding paragraph reveals how communicationscholars have gravitated toward one of two historically competing definitions of‘‘collective memory.’’ As Olick (1999) outlines, collective memory pioneer Halbwachs(1950/1980)5 struggled to reconcile two versions of the shared-and-remembered past:

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The aggregate memories of individuals (what Olick calls ‘‘collected memory’’) andthe public manifestations of social memory (what Olick terms ‘‘collective memory’’).Communication scholars, rhetoricians in particular, have embraced the seconddefinition while largely leaving scholars in other fields to explore the first definition.Olick, however, urges that scholars ‘‘bring these [competing] enterprises into dialoguewith one another’’ (p. 346).

Although Olick’s argument is aimed mainly at sociologists, our goal is to placerhetorically inclined approaches to collective memory studies in dialogue with workfrom other scholarly traditions. To do so, we suggest that memory studies can beenriched and enhanced by exploring processes of remembering within places throughthe integrative unit of analysis persons-with/in-places.6 Our formulation of persons-with/in-places is consistent with foundational ideas outlined by spatial theoristssuch as Lefebvre (1974/1991) and Soja (1989). They argue that we make senseof any physical site through a complex process in which the site’s characteristics,sociocultural contexts, and the individual’s experiences intersect. Drawing fromsimilar foundational scholarship, although working from within the perspective of arhetorical critic, Dickinson (2006), asserts that ‘‘we need to explore the intersectionsamong the varieties of texts we bring with us to particular spaces’’ (p. 213).

Our conceptualization of persons-with/in-places recognizes that both persons andplaces are mutually implicated within what we call re-collection. We are especiallydrawn to the label re-collection because it represents both a process and a product.Zelizer (1995) suggests as much when she writes of ‘‘the act of recollecting’’:‘‘Remembering is a processual action by which people constantly transform therecollections that they produce’’ (p. 218).7 Our addition of the hyphen implies thatboth the process and product are ‘‘do-overs’’ of previous processes and products; inother words, ongoing processes of remembering generate different memories.

Although Zelizer and others working within collective memory studies may usethe term re-collection and/or variants of it in their discussions of collective memory, wepropose featuring the idea as a way of conceptualizing and doing studies of emplacedcollective memories. Re-collection, in fact, offers a third, mediating alternative toHalbwachs’s/Olick’s two options, for it recognizes that publicly shared memories areemplaced and that members of aggregates interact with/in those emplaced sites ofre-collections. Accordingly, we propose that places of memory are not finished texts,but sites of re-collection in which individuals and groups selectively cull and organizere-collected versions of the past that are (not) shared by others.8 This is not to say thatthe site of re-collection is mere container; instead, we view re-collection as a reciprocaland interrelated interaction among the people who remember, the places where theyhouse their memories, and the contexts in which this remembering occurs.

Our goal is not to offer a ‘‘new’’ rhetorical approach, nor is it to privilege thecontextualized place of re-collection (text) or the person (audience). Instead, weseek to explain and illustrate how scholars interested in the meanings of emplacedmemories—no matter what their perspective—might benefit from inviting Olick’s‘‘collected memories’’ and ‘‘collective memories’’ in dialogue through re-collection.



The provocative, and generally underappreciated, work of McGee (1990) provides atheoretical foundation for our theory of re-collection.

Re-collection of rhetorical fragments

McGee, who was inspired by Becker’s (1971) call for scholars to attend to‘‘communication mosaics’’ rather than individual moments of discourse, arguesthat rhetorical scholars should consider ‘‘three structural relationships’’ in theiranalyses of rhetorical phenomena: ‘‘[B]etween an apparently finished discourse andits sources, between an apparently finished discourse and culture, and between anapparently finished discourse and its influence’’ (p. 280).

McGee’s use of the phrase ‘‘apparently finished discourse’’—as readers familiarwith his essay will know—refers primarily to his first structural relationship,specifically, that the notion of text as traditionally understood needs to be redefined,not as a self-contained discourse, but as an entity that ‘‘is in fact a dense reconstructionof all the bits of other discourses from which it was made’’ (p. 279). McGee callsthese bits of discourse ‘‘fragments,’’ and suggests that the proliferation of discoursepromulgated by life in a postmodern age means that what we have typically called‘‘text’’ and ‘‘context’’ collapse upon one another so as to render distinctions betweenthe two moot. In this sense, McGee writes, ‘‘‘texts’ have disappeared altogether,leaving us with nothing but discursive fragments of context. . . . We have insteadfragments of ‘information’ that constitute our context’’ (p. 287, emphasis original).

The second structural relationship, between an apparently finished discourse andculture, points out that cultural fragments are implicated, even embedded, withinevery rhetorical phenomenon. As McGee explains: ‘‘Since all apparently finisheddiscourses presupposed taken-for-granted cultural imperatives, all of culture isimplicated in every instance of discourse’’ (p. 281).

McGee’s third structural relationship is perhaps the most intriguing and yetundertheorized. His interest in the influence of an apparently finished discourse leadshim to assert that, ultimately, individuals who have been traditionally conceptualizedas audiences of texts should instead be understood as the text producers in that theyassimilate text/context fragments embedded within apparently finished discourseswith their own constellation of discursive fragments. The text/context fragments,McGee argues, ‘‘cue [audience members] to produce a finished discourse in theirminds. In short, text construction is now something done more by the consumersthan by the producers of discourse’’ (p. 288). Unfortunately, McGee concludes hisessay with this revolutionary assertion rather than exploring its implications for howrhetorical scholars should engage audiences.

Our aim is to outline how we can translate McGee’s intriguing theoretical ideasinto a means of enriching our understanding of processes of remembering withinplaces. In particular, we propose that re-collection is an ongoing process of organizingwhat we call discursive fragments of memory into coherent bodies of meaning. Theorganization, or re-collection, of these fragments is by no means a linear process.



Instead, it occurs within the intersection of texts, contexts, and individuals—andthroughout their ongoing circulation within and among different groups (Warner,2002). Accordingly, we stress that the interrelationships among McGee’s threestructural relationships precludes a unidirectional investigative process; one need notbegin with the first structural relationship and move forward, nor does one necessarilyneed to follow an inductive or deductive logic. Instead, we urge that one may enterinto the place of re-collection at any of three structural relationships and that oneshould move abductively, tacking back and forth among the relationships. For easeof explanation, as we hope will be clear, our discussion of how to investigate theprocess of re-collection follows this pattern: Structural relationship one, structuralrelationship three, structural relationship two.

In order to illustrate how these structural relationships can be explored throughre-collection, we integrate our adaptation of McGee’s ideas with a case studyproposal for a re-collection analysis surrounding the Space Window at WashingtonNational Cathedral (WNC), officially called the Cathedral Church of Saint Peter andSaint Paul, and the seat of the Bishop for the Episcopal Church USE. The SpaceWindow—formally known as the Scientists and Technicians Window—is one of 215stained glass windows at WNC, but it is one of the more famous such windows in thecathedral and occupies a center position in the part of the cathedral where docent-ledtours begin. The Space Window depicts stars, planets, and the path of a spaceship. Inthe approximate center of the window is a black dot, which is actually a small pieceof moon rock donated by the crew of Apollo 11. While the Space Window is one ofthe 109 stained glass windows in WNC that have a primarily nonbiblical subject, italso clearly reflects a spiritual theme (as do many of the other nonbiblical windows)and includes an inscription from the book of Job: ‘‘Is not God in the height ofheaven’’ (Job 22:12). Thus, as an informational document produced by the U.S. StateDepartment’s Bureau of International Information Programs explains, ‘‘the celestialscene not only pays tribute to scientific achievement, but invites contemplation ofthe galaxy as part of God’s creation’’ (Monsen, 2007).

The window serves as a place of re-collection in three ways. First, it offers asecular memory of the role of the United States in exploring the universe beyondEarth; the lunar rock, in particular, reminds visitors of the fact that only U.S.citizens have set foot on the moon. Second, as its formal name suggests, the windowmemorializes the related scientific and technical accomplishments of human beingsgenerally. Third, its location within WNC offers a reminder of the spiritual roots ofthe United States. As its website points out, among the WNC’s three purposes are ‘‘anational house of prayer for all people’’ and ‘‘a great church for national purposes’’(‘‘About’’).9 Thus, WNC’s multiple purposes, and the fact that the funds for manyof its windows (including the Space Window) came from private donors interestedmore in promoting their causes as part of the national mosaic than in supporting theEpiscopal Church, make it an interesting blend of the secular and spiritual. As weshall illustrate, this combination contributes to the Space Window’s role as a place ofre-collection.



Investigating re-collection

Places re-collectingThe first structural relationship, between an apparently finished discourse and itssources, requires an investigative process akin to rhetorical criticism—but one thatis more wide-ranging and attentive to issues of place.10 Places of memory, suchas museums and memorials, gather ideas, symbols, and histories within them. AsCasey (1996) asserts, ‘‘minimally, places gather things in their midst—where ‘things’connote various animate and inanimate entities. Places also gather experiences andhistories, even languages and thoughts’’ (p. 24). Walter (1988) refers to this processas the doctrine of mutual immanence, which ‘‘includes all the effective presencesinfluencing one another that abide together in a place’’ (p. 205). As part of thisgathering process, places absorb the surrounding landscape and social scene, somuch so that they ‘‘generate their own fields of meaning’’ (Basso, 1996, p. 108).

As these descriptions suggest, a place attains some of its possibilities for meaningbased upon its position in relation to other places. Accordingly, we embrace Condit’s(2006) argument that we should explore the ways in which communication isrelational; that is, how any single entity is necessarily bound up in its relationswith others: ‘‘Taking a relationality perspective on communication would meanalways asking, ‘How are the interesting entities being constituted and related by thiscommunication?’’’ (p. 7).

In our case, of course, these ‘‘interesting entities’’ are places of memory, and theygather discursive fragments of memory in a myriad of ways. As they tell stories aboutthe past, they re-collect the voices of those involved in the story in much the sameway that Bakhtin (1981) outlines in his theorizing of the dialogic characteristics ofthe novel. That is, any single story/place holds multiple voices within it. Borrowingfrom Bakhtin, Jasinski (1997) artfully illustrates the polyphonic dimensions of TheFederalist Papers, for example, by casting them not just as texts but as rhetoricalperformances that ‘‘are a vehicle for affirming, subverting, and reconstituting suchelemental aspects of a society as individual and collective identity, interests, values,political principles and concepts, historical traditions, and memories of the past’’(p. 26, emphasis added). Similarly, places of memory are both the scenes for, andaccomplishments of, rhetorical performances that can gather all of what Jasinskioutlines.

The Space Window in WNC, for example, gathers both national and spiritualsymbols within its frame. The color composition of the window symbolicallyreferences the flag of the United States. Composed mostly in blues in its lower half,the upper half incorporates significant use of red. Throughout the window are dotsof white, signifying stars. Moreover, it is the only window in WNC in which eachof the three lancets combine to form a single image—a unity in form that parallelsthe unity symbolized by the colors of the window. Yet, the window’s designer,Rodney Winfield, ‘‘wanted to show the minuteness of humanity in God’s universe’’(‘‘Scientists’’). Certainly, the window’s location in WNC suggests that it possesses



spiritual as well as secular meanings. Thus, the primarily red-white-and-blue window,with its emphasis upon the heavens, seems to integrate two intertwined narratives:America’s secular accomplishments are embedded in its Christian roots; in otherwords, the nation that is ‘‘heaven on earth’’ has been divinely inspired and led.

Murphy (2001) reminds us, however, that basing rhetorical analyses uponBakhtin’s work runs the risk of overlooking how power is inevitably embeddedin rhetoric. His concern is that a constitutive approach to rhetoric (which he findspresent in those who are inspired by Bakhtin) tends to slight rhetoric’s traditional, andongoing, function as an instrumental force. Although Murphy’s argument assumesrhetoric as public address, his caution is well-taken—especially within the realm ofplaces of memory, for while they may gather a chorus of discursive fragments ofmemory they do so in incomplete and selective ways: ‘‘Collective memories help usfabricate, rearrange, or omit details from the past as we thought we knew it’’ (Zelizer,1995, p. 217). Similarly, in his discussion of the differences between heritage andhistory, Lowenthal (1998) adds that the former is essentially a ‘‘fabrication’’ of thepast, and that these fabrications are both inevitable and useful for those who modifyhistory. For example, Sturken (1998) argues that the Vietnam Veterans Memorialwall serves as a dual-purpose screen in that it both projects memories for visitorswhile filtering other discursive fragments of memory out of the memorial (e.g., thedeaths of Vietnamese citizens during the war). In short, collective memories areabout forgetting as much as they are about remembering (Schudson, 1992).

In this respect, McGee’s first structural relationship should alert us to the presenceof omitted fragments as well as those that are gathered within a place of re-collection.‘‘We build the world we suppose by expressing or suppressing specific features ofexperience,’’ argues Walter (1988, p. 205) in summarizing his doctrine of ‘‘selectivesupport’’ regarding places and their meanings. Thus, just as Wander’s (1996) conceptof ‘‘rhetorical contextualization’’ reminds critics to attend to what is absent as muchas what is present—and how the two are related—in speeches, we assert that asimilar process is necessary in the analysis of how places of memory gather—andexclude—rhetorical fragments. As de Certeau (1984) points out, places are configuredin particular ways for particular purposes, typically involving an attempt to controlthe experiences of those who navigate within them.

Communication scholars have done exemplary work in this regard. In particular,we note the number of insightful analyses of how museums are rhetoricallyconstructed in ways that seek to guide visitor experiences while including andexcluding selective discursive fragments of memory (e.g., Armada, 1998; Dickinsonet al., 2005, 2006; Hasian, 2004; Hubbard & Hasian, 1998; Katriel, 1994; King, 2006;Prosise, 1998, 2003). In general, and not just in the analysis of museums, we believerhetorical scholars should be commended for their close textual analyses of howplaces of memory selectively re-present the past.

At the same time, however, we urge an even broader interpretation of how placesgather and re-collect discursive fragments of memory. In addition to closely analyzingwhat is present and absent within the place of re-collection, we suggest that scholars



take note of how other discourses, other ideologies, and other locations are gatheredand omitted within the place. In communication, Blair and Michel’s (1999, 2001)work on the Astronauts Memorial at the Kennedy Space Center Visitor Complex isan excellent example of such work. Initially perplexed by visitors’ seeming lack ofinterest in the memorial, Blair and Michel ultimately realized that its location withina tourist site, and within the larger tourist area of central Florida, meant that thememorial gathered fragments of tourism and entertainment as well as fragments ofmemory. In sociology, Wagner-Pacifici and Schwartz (1991) introduce the idea of a‘‘discursive surround’’ to demonstrate how the meanings of the Vietnam VeteransMemorial are inextricably linked to the discursive fragments of memory found notjust in the memorial site itself, but throughout the Washington Mall.

Similarly, the Space Window gathers and omits from a discursive surround thatextends beyond the window’s frame. To begin, the window is symbolically related tothe cathedral’s other stained glass windows. Many of these windows depict biblicallyinspired scenes, while others memorialize exceptional American accomplishmentssuch as the journey of Lewis and Clark. Second, the window is located within theconfines of the cathedral—itself a national place of re-collection that selectively drawsupon distinct historical traditions. In particular, the cathedral’s Gothic architectureand Episcopalian denomination strongly connect the building with Protestant, Anglo-Saxon narratives. Indeed, stone that was used in the construction of the CanterburyCathedral was carved and used for the main pulpit of WNC. Third, the sermonicdiscourse that echoes through the halls of WNC regularly amplifies the connectionsbetween spiritual enlightenment and national moral purpose, and national mourningservices are typically held within the cathedral. Fourth, WNC is located at the highestpoint in Washington, DC—Mount Saint Alban. This ‘‘view from above’’ certainlyhas parallels with the ‘‘views from above’’ associated with the spiritual and secularvisions intertwined within the Space Window. Fifth, WNC is located within theNorthwest Quadrant of the District of Columbia, the only quadrant of the metroarea that is predominantly white and affluent. Thus, the ‘‘view from above’’ also hassocioeconomic implications. Finally, as a place of re-collection within the geographicboundaries of the nation’s capital, WNC is also symbolically positioned within theprominent places of re-collection located on and around the Washington Mall. Infact, most of the visitors to WNC are on tours that visit other places of re-collectionwithin the nation’s capital.11 Given this mosaic of fragments, one could argue thatthe WNC itself, and the Space Window in particular, possess an instrumental forcein that they reflect and perpetuate an historical—and ongoing—self-identity of theUnited States as God’s chosen people whose mission is to spread its way of life aroundthe globe and beyond (with often questionable results).

These observations remind us that re-collection is not limited to the site itself.In addition to discursive fragments of memory found in and around any place ofre-collection, those who interact with/in the place also bring their own discursivefragments of memory to the meaning-making process. Thus, we now turn to



an elaboration of McGee’s third structural relationship within the context of re-collection.

Persons re-collectingThe third structural relationship, between an apparently finished discourse andits influence, is perhaps the most important to explain, for it calls for the mostsignificant shift in the traditionally rhetorical approach to the study of collectivememory by exploring how apparently finished discourses serve as resources fromwhich individuals make meanings. As such, our arguments and explanations inthis section are designed to demonstrate both how traditionally rhetorical thisapproach really is (by referencing the classical traditions of rhetoric, not just 20th-century traditions) and how nonrhetorical scholars’ work can contribute to ourunderstanding of re-collection.

‘‘Whether we conceive it in an Aristotelian sense as the art of persuasion, orin a Burkean sense as the social process of identification,’’ McGee (1990) argues,‘‘rhetoric is influential’’ (p. 279). His notion of influence, however, seems to rangewider than an assumption that a text caused an audience to react in a particular way,an assumption that can be, and often is, enacted by culling media reports of audienceresponses. Instead, we believe McGee’s assertion that audiences finish the rhetoric intheir own minds requires scholars to engage the individuals—or as McGee describesthem, ‘‘everyday critics’’ (p. 281)—who, ultimately, give meaning to the rhetoricthey encounter. To explain our perspective on McGee’s third structural relationshipin more detail, we first outline two assumptions that guide our conceptualization ofre-collection. We then turn to an explanation of how one can enact these assumptionswhile searching for fragments of a place of re-collection’s influence.

In keeping with our broad interests in meaning-making, we suggest that scholarsinvestigating McGee’s third structural relationship within our notion of re-collectionconsider the following two assumptions. First, if ‘‘text construction is now somethingdone more by the consumers than by the producers of discourse’’ (McGee, 1990,p. 288), then the classical canon of invention should also apply to audiences. Second,the influence of an ‘‘apparently finished discourse’’ may be emotionally, as wellas cognitively, experienced. Together, these two assumptions reflect our belief thatcollective memories—while inevitably tied to group considerations (as we discuss inthe next section)—are at least partially composed of individual re-collections.

Initially, we believe McGee’s assertion about ‘‘text construction’’ is a call forrhetorical scholars to reconsider the classical canon of invention as work done byboth text producers and consumers. In many ways, such a reconsideration is actuallyconsistent with how many classical thinkers conceptualized rhetoric. In her insightfulwork Internal Rhetorics, Nienkamp (2001) points out that internal deliberation, orself-persuasion, was once considered part of the rubric of rhetoric. How could arhetor practice the rhetorical arts of kairos, techne, dispositio, and so forth, withoutsuch deliberation? Yet, as Frentz (1993) argues, ‘‘if we trace the history of rhetoricclosely, we find that the struggle between these two forms [external and internal] is



resolved when the external visions come to dominate, misrepresent, and repress theirinterior counterparts’’ (p. 83).

Nienkamp’s book articulates how both classical and contemporary theories ofrhetoric can reinvigorate the idea of self-deliberation, or what we are conceptualizingas an expansion of invention. She concludes her argument with a discussion of the‘‘rhetorical self,’’ an entity that wrestles with two types of internal rhetorics: Cultivatedand primary. Teachers of rhetoric since the ancient Greeks have sought to developour abilities to engage in cultivated internal rhetoric, or what Nienkamp refers toas self-deliberation that is thoughtful, aware, and—ideally—critical. On the otherhand, Nienkamp notes, more contemporary theorists of symbolicity such as KennethBurke have pointed out that we are under the constant influence of symbols that wemuch less consciously process and consider. The rhetorical self thus struggles betweenthe two sets of internal rhetorics. She writes, ‘‘Kenneth Burke’s characterization ofthe ‘complex individual’ having a ‘parliamentary wrangle’ in her psyche (Rhetoric38) is thus a telling metaphor for the operation of the rhetorical self’’ (p. 128). Inthis respect, Nienkamp’s argument shares much in common with Bakhtin’s notionof polyphony, an observation noted by Grano (2007) in his discussion of dialogismand interiority in the work of Plato and Bakhtin.

Yet, this cognitive orientation toward McGee’s third structural relationshipidentifies only part of a person’s encounter with/in a place of re-collection; it providesan account of how individuals make sense of their experience but omits how they sensetheir experience. Both are vital components of meaning-making in places of memory,for emplaced memories are inevitably emotional (Harkin, 2003; White, 2006). AsWalter (1988) argues, ‘‘a place is a location of experience. It evokes and organizesmemories, images, feelings, sentiments, meanings, and the work of imagination’’(p. 21).

When we enter a site of re-collection, then move through and between placeswithin the site, we quite literally sense a place by taking in what surrounds us. Whatwe see, hear, smell, and touch in a place of re-collection is coordinated through anongoing bodily process that Hiss (1990) calls ‘‘simultaneous perception’’ or a ‘‘sixthsense’’ (p. 21). Rodaway (1994) provides a more thorough explanation:

The body gives us an orientation in the world through its physical structure . . . .The body gives us a measure of the world, that is forms a basic yardstick by whichwe appreciate space, distance, and scale . . . . The locomotion of the body and itsparts offers us the potential to explore and evaluate our environment . . . . Thebody as coherent system helps to integrate and coordinate (through its muscularstructure and the functions of the brain) the sensuous experience generated bythe various sense modes. (p. 31)

These bodily experiences, moreover, help concretize our memories of places; theytranslate the bodily experience into an emotional one.

Blair’s (2001) reflections about her visits to sites of re-collections, for example,provide a fascinating account of her memorable experiences in these places. Although



not every place of memory produces a profound emotional experience, Blair’s accountof the chilling interior of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum is noteworthy:

I felt exhausted, overwhelmed, resentful, and nearly frantic for some respite. . . .The Museum is an ordeal, not just because of its collection or the story it tells(although, of course, those are devastating), but because of the dehumanizingforce of its interior space on the body. (pp. 286–287)

As Blair’s words illustrate, the connections among body, emotion, and place can beextraordinarily powerful.

Attending to these issues of experience in places of memory, especially in relationto the body, is not at all inconsistent with rhetoric’s roots, as Hawhee’s (2005,2006, 2007) work illustrates. Like Frentz and Nienkamp, she persuasively arguesthat what we now conceive of as the rhetorical tradition is in fact a much narrowerconceptualization than was utilized in classical times. In particular, Hawhee (2006)points out that the cognitive dimensions of rhetoric have come to dominate ourapproach, although ‘‘rhetoric has long been intertwined with bodily matters; it’s justthat our Aristotelian commitments to thought and reason have historically producedtrained incapacities, most notably our difficulty theorizing the body’s relationshipto rhetoric’’ (p. 349). For example, several scholars (e.g., Connerton, 1989; Pezzullo,2003; Taylor, 2003) have illustrated how embodied performances are a powerful andeffective means of perpetuating collective memory.

Although acknowledgment of the aesthetics of places of re-collection sometimesdoes occur in rhetorical work (e.g., Foss, 1986; Halloran & Clark, 2006), webelieve the work of environmental psychologists (Altman & Low, 1992; McAndrew,1993), geographers (Rodaway, 1994; Tuan, 1993), and philosophers of place (Casey,1996; Malpas, 1999) provides a more wide-ranging and illuminating explorationof how the embodied, sensual dimensions of places of re-collection contributeto experiences of re-collection. In each of these traditions, scholars focus uponthe emotional experiences of humans interacting with/in meaningful places. Whiletheir work, in general, has not explored the idea of collective memories withinplaces, it does directly address how memory, identity, and place intersect withinindividual and group experiences. For example, Whitridge (2004) and Basso (1996),respectively, thoughtfully explore how important Inuit and Western Apache placesare experienced, and understood, as locations of both individual and group memoryand identity.

To that end, we believe that an exploration of the third structural relationshipin places of memory may involve ethnographic observations and/or interviews withvisitors to the site (Gable & Handler, 2000; Gatewood & Cameron, 2004; Gustafson,1999; Handler & Gable, 1997; Jansen-Verbeke & van Rekom, 1996; Kelly, 1996;Lindquist, 2002; May, 2000; Milligan, 1998, 2007; Prentice, Witt, & Hamer, 1998;Tota, 2004; Williams, Patterson, Roggenbuck, & Watson, 1992; Young, 1999), visitor-completed surveys or questionnaires (Cameron & Gatewood, 2000, 2003; Gatewood& Cameron, 2004; McIntosh & Prentice, 1999; Young, 1999), collection of individuals’



narratives about the place (Bird, 2002), participatory photography (Ponzetti, 2003),and/or map-making (Ackerman, 2003; Brown & Raymond, 2007)—all of whichhave been carefully and successfully used by scholars outside of communication tounderstand individuals’ experiences within, and meaning-making processes about,places of memory and identity.

Given the wide variety of possibilities here, and their typical designation asnonrhetorical methods of inquiry, we emphasize that re-collection is intended toaddress the broad question of how meanings are made within places of memory. Thescholar must thoughtfully and sensitively understand the place of re-collection to bestdetermine which approach would best provide insight into the experiences of the site.For example, visitors to the tourist site of a reconstructed past, Colonial Williamsburg,had significantly less profound experiences (e.g., Gable & Handler, 2000) than manyvisitors have when they experience the Vietnam Veterans Memorial (e.g., Carlson& Hocking, 1988). Thus, one would not intrude upon the solemn and powerfulexperiences of visitors to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial or the U.S. HolocaustMemorial Museum to request an interview, but scholars outside of communicationhave successfully used mail-in exit surveys to gauge visitors’ reactions to places ofre-collection (e.g., Gatewood & Cameron, 2004).

The insights gained through these person-oriented approaches can be easily putin dialogue with more textually-oriented approaches. For instance, Aden (1999)interviewed visitors to the Field of Dreams site of re-collection—while they werearound, not on, the field—and then integrated visitors’ insights with his ethnographicobservations and his rhetorical analysis of the film Field of Dreams.

To gain an understanding of visitor experiences at the Space Window in WNC,we would need to attend to the nature of these experiences. For example, rather thanquery worship service attendees in person about the window, and intrude upon thesolemnity of the occasion, we would work through church leadership to distributequestionnaires to members of the church. These questionnaires would, among otherthings, ask church members about their first encounters with the Space Window,what they tell visiting friends and family about the window, what meaning(s) thewindow suggests to them, why is it an important part of the cathedral, and so forth.The questionnaire would also ask if the church member would be interested inparticipating in an interview about the window (which would occur outside of aworship service time).

On the other hand, weekday visitors to WNC who participate in docent-ledtours of the site could be approached for short interviews after the conclusion oftheir tour.12 They would be asked a brief set of questions designed to assess theirexperiences with the window; for example, what did you think of the Space Window,how would you describe the experience of encountering the window to your friendsand family, what does the window remind you of, how does it compare to otherwindows in WNC and in other houses of worship, and so forth.

In both the questionnaires distributed to church members and the interviews ofvisitors we would seek to understand how individuals make sense of the window,



especially in light of other discursive fragments of memory that they bring to theinterpretive process.13 In addition, to develop insights into how individuals sensethe aesthetic qualities of the window, and to ascertain how their re-collections mightbe framed by the communication of the docents, we would also want to participatein tours as participant-observers. Since, before tours commence, participants in thedocent-led tours congregate in the part of the cathedral that contains the SpaceWindow, we might well be able to overhear visitor comments and engage in informalconversations about the window before the tour as well as during the tour. Finally,WNC keeps records of comments in visitor’s logs that could be reviewed for accountsof visitor experiences with the Space Window.14

As these avenues of inquiry suggest, no matter which approach one takes toexploring re-collection through McGee’s third structural relationship, we recognizethat we are urging a significant shift in how communication scholars have exploredcollective memory. In urging the introduction of methods of inquiry beyondrhetorical criticism, while noting that classical notions of rhetoric point to theneed to attend to experiences as well as text, we are suggesting a broadening ofthe text to be analyzed to include the field of discursive fragments that circulatewithin and around the site of re-collection—recognizing, of course, that any fieldof discursive fragments of memory cannot be known in its entirety, but only fromincomplete, situated, and temporary perspectives.

In so doing, we hope to point to a way out of an issue that we believe hasunfortunately separated scholars interested in meaning-making: Rhetoric has beendeemed worthy of study because of its influence, but its influence on audiencemembers has been typically defined as outside the realm of rhetorical studies (see,for example, Black, 1965; Brockriede, Scott, & Jellicose, 1965). We hope that ourexplanation of re-collection has demonstrated that, while of interest, terms such as‘‘influence’’ and ‘‘effect’’ are unnecessarily linear and narrow. Instead, our admittedlybroad use of ‘‘experience’’ incorporates these concerns but does so in a way that alsoreminds us of the indirect, nonbehavioral, noncognitive results of our communicativeencounters with emplaced memories.

Rather than focusing solely on the textual manifestation of the memory, then, weare advocating for a focus on the process of remembering by also attending to thosewho remember and how they do so. As Halbwachs (1950/1980) asserted in explainingone half of his thesis, ‘‘while the collective memory endures and draws strengthfrom its base in a coherent body of people, it is individuals as group members whoremember’’ (p. 48). And, because individuals remember together, as members of agroup, we turn to McGee’s second structural relationship.

Cultures re-collectingMcGee’s second structural relationship, between an apparently finished discourseand culture, allows us to understand how these individual re-collections coalesceinto, and branch out among, various social groups. ‘‘Recollection is the processwhereby beings move to their interior, ‘collect’ once more their parts together



(re-collection), or ‘re-member’ themselves, reconstitute their members’’ (Cox, 1990,p. 3). In other words, we can examine how the confluence of the site as a re-collectionof fragments and the individual interpreters as compilers of fragments producesdifferent communities of memory. This assertion is rooted in two assumptions.

First, the re-collections of individuals are products of their interactions withgroups; thus, patterns of memories will emerge from among individuals who revealtheir cultural moorings. Initially, as sociologists in particular have illustrated, themaking of collective memories is an interactional process (Beim, 2007; Gustafson,2001; Milligan, 1998, 2007). At one level, these interactions occur between the individ-ual and the group—as Halbwachs (1950/1980) first demonstrated. At another level,these interactions occur between individuals and the places of memory. Explains Beim(2007): ‘‘The interaction here is binary: (a) the interaction between culturally relatedindividuals, and (b) the interaction between individuals and institutionalized forms.This interaction produces cognitive schema that people use to make sense of the past’’(p. 8). Whether or not one agrees with Beim’s cognitive orientation, his larger pointillustrates the value of broadening our understanding of the traditionally rhetoricaltriumvirate of text-context-audience to examine the interrelationships among them.

Second, any collective memory or place of memory is a polyphonic site opento multiple, and often contested, re-collections; that is, different practices of re-collection mean that we should instead always think of collective memories (Hasian,2001). As Gillis (1994) points out: ‘‘Everyone belongs simultaneously to severaldifferent groups, each with its own collective memory’’ (p. 15). This observation hasbeen affirmed by work in anthropology (White, 2001), sociology (Lavrence, 2005),history (Bodnar, 1992), and communication (Browne, 1999).

Enacting this second structural relationship in practice, then, means both‘‘unmasking cultural imperatives’’ (McGee, 1990, p. 281) implicated in re-collectionsand explaining how these cultural imperatives reveal the ongoing and contestednature of remembering the past. ‘‘Conceptualizing place as the intersection of sharedand contested meanings,’’ write Yung, Freimund, and Belsky (2003, p. 865), pointsto how ‘‘place meanings may be part of larger political struggles [and] explains whyparticular images and ideas are often inseparable from the interests of particulargroups of people.’’ In essence, we should be identifying not just the ‘‘experientiallandscapes’’ (Dickinson, Ott, & Aoki, 2006, p. 29) of the places of re-collectionthemselves but also how the memories re-collected within those places point to the‘‘cultural topograph[ies] on which we locate our actions’’ (Stormer, 2003, p. 515).

Stormer’s use of ‘‘cultural topography’’ reminds us, too, that the emplaced natureof collective memories requires us to think about the memories of collectives interms of where they reside in relation to other collectives’ landscapes of meaning.Understood in this manner, re-collection’s functional dimension is to produce therhetorical equivalent of what environmental psychologists call ‘‘cognitive maps’’or ‘‘mental representations of environments’’ (McAndrew, 1993, p. 33)—a notionsimilar to Halbwachs’s (1950/1980) description of a ‘‘spatial framework’’ (p. 140).These maps serve an orienting function in that they help us remember our experiences



in places (Downs & Stea, 1977). Like memories, however, cognitive maps are selectivere-collections: ‘‘[T]hrough abstraction and errors of attention, perception, andrecall, cognitive maps can be quite different from reality’’ (McAndrew, 1993, p. 33).Landscapes of meaning are not, however, ‘‘different from reality’’; they serve as eachcollective’s understanding of reality. For example, as Matei and Ball-Rokeach (2005)demonstrate, the aggregate mental maps of Los Angeles area residents are inaccuratein their assignation of the most crime-filled areas of the city yet they reflect theresidents’ understanding of reality.15

In understanding the cultural topographies surrounding the Space Window, wewould need to identify and compare patterns of re-collection gathered through qual-itative methods of data collection, examine those patterns in relation to the insightsdeveloped through analysis of the window itself, and consider how other discursivefragments of memory from the larger discursive surround might contribute to there-collections generated. The initial goal of this process would be to provide insightinto how discursive fragments of memory circulating within the window, around thewindow, and beyond the window are interwoven with discursive fragments of mem-ory brought to the window by those who experience it. More importantly, though, alarger goal would be to identify how different collectives re-collect with/in the site ofthe Space Window while revealing the cultural assumptions embedded within theirre-collections. In so doing, we should be able to point to how, in McGee’s terms,the apparently finished discourse of the Space Window is finished differently in theminds of different collectives—and thus remains open to contestation and revision.

SummaryOur ongoing discussion of WNC’s Space Window seeks to illustrate not only howwe propose investigating re-collection but also how what we propose is differentthan what we are calling a traditionally rhetorical approach to the study of places ofmemory. To further highlight these distinctions, we offer the following explanationof the research questions that a rhetorical critic would ask at a place of memorycompared to the research questions that a scholar using our theory of re-collectionwould ask. To begin, we emphasize that, despite some similarities within the firststructural relationship outlined by McGee (1990), re-collection is decidedly differentthan the textual approach that rhetorical scholars typically enact in their analysesof places of memory. Traditionally, as Blair (1999) points out in her discussion ofmemorial sites, ‘‘these memorial sites [are] taken as rhetorical texts’’ (p. 30).16 Blair,in fact, outlines a series of five questions that should guide a rhetorical approach tothe study of memorial sites as texts:

(1) What is the significance of the text’s material existence? (2) What are theapparatuses and degrees of durability displayed by the text? (3) What are thetext’s modes or possibilities of reproduction or preservation? (4) What does thetext do to (or with, or against) other texts? (5) How does the text act on people?(p. 30)



These questions provide an excellent foundation from which to study places ofmemory as texts.

A scholar working from a theory of re-collection foundation, on the other hand,would ask slightly different questions, beginning with an adaptation of the fourthand fifth questions posed by Blair: (1) How do places of memory re-collect discursivefragments of memory? (2) How does the interrelationship of place, person, andculture contribute to the meaning-making processes that occur within the place ofmemory? (3) How do patterns of remembering among groups illustrate the contestednature of collective memory? (4) How do the answers to questions 1–3 remind us ofthe processual nature of remembering the past?17

As we emphasized earlier, scholars investigating re-collection need not begin withany particular structural relationship, nor do they need to address questions 1–3above in the order listed. The fourth question, however, does suggest that it is bestconsidered following an exploration of the previous three questions. Collectively,these questions point us toward the two underdeveloped areas of collective memorystudies we identified at the beginning of this article: Its dynamic nature (questions 3and 4) and its emplaced character (questions 1 and 2).

Conclusion

Re-collection, as we have defined and illustrated it, emphasizes the processual natureof collective memory and explores the rich textures of its emplacement with/in sitesof memory. In broadening the scope of collective memory studies through the ideaof re-collection, we seek to encourage an even richer understanding of how differentcollectives construct contested meanings of the past with/in places of memory.Relying upon Michael McGee’s innovative thinking about discursive fragments, webelieve that re-collection can produce a broader and deeper understanding of howthe past is differentially re-collected by focusing on what discursive fragments ofmemory are gathered (and omitted) within the site of re-collection, how individualsselectively configure meanings about the past using both those fragments andthose that they bring to the meaning-making process with/in the place, and howcultural considerations constrain the process of re-collection while simultaneouslyenlightening us about how different collectives understand the past.

Re-collection thus involves a conceptual, as well as nominal, shift in collectivememory studies. Our perspective is not traditionally rhetorical, in that we advocate adifferent orientation toward the notion of text —not dismissing its relevance, as somescholars have urged (i.e., Conquergood, 2002), but by following McGee’s (1990)lead in expanding what counts as text while collapsing it within context and locatingits production within audience. Rather than devoting attention primarily to placesof re-collection as texts or, in rare occasions, to the reactions of visitors to thoseplaces, we suggest that significant attention be given to the experiences of the personswith/in places of memory. Re-collection does not exclude textual matters—in fact, itencourages careful consideration of the place and its surroundings as con/text—but



it also does not privilege the place as a text. Instead, re-collection addresses all ofthe following: The place of re-collection as fragmented con/text, the discursive tracescirculating within and around the place of re-collection, the discursive fragmentsthat visitors bring to the place, visitors’ sensory and embodied experiences within theplace, and—importantly—visitors’ individual and collective selection, and shaping,of all of these elements into a coherent orientation involving past, present, and future.

Although our focus in this article has been on traditional places of memory, orthose constructed with the intent to serve as memory sites, we would be remiss if wedid not also note that our theory of re-collection also may be useful in examiningnontraditional places of re-collection. In fact, if we return to Nora’s (1989) notion thatsites of memory can take a number of different forms, we might well be able to bringour ideas to bear on other material artifacts such as clothing, newspapers, diaries,mementos, scrapbooks, and photographs—all of which are also primary loci for re-collecting (e.g., Berger, 1992; Dunleavy, 2005; Edwards, 2004; Finnegan, 2003, 2004;Hariman & Lucaites, 2003; Katriel & Farrell, 1991; Schwartz, 1998; Wagner-Pacifici,1996; Zelizer, 2004). Perhaps, even, re-collection would be a valuable perspective inexploring symbolic spaces or imaginaries as sites of re-collection.

Collective memory scholarship in communication has taught us much about howwe remember and make use of the past, yet we believe that we have much moreto learn. By building upon the thoughtful work of rhetorical scholars interested incollective memory, and integrating insights from scholars outside of the rhetoricaltradition, our proposal for re-collection offers an opportunity to enhance and enrichour knowledge of the dynamic and emplaced dimensions of how we know ourpast—and ourselves.

Acknowledgments

The authors thank Jeffrey St. John and the reviewers for their helpful comments onprevious drafts of this article. An earlier version of the article was presented at the2007 National Communication Association Conference.

Notes

1 Our explanations in what follows are meant to represent general trends in the study ofcollective memory within the field of communication; indeed, we note a number ofstudies published by communication scholars that stand out as distinct from thesegeneral trends. Moreover, while we believe the study of collective memory can beenhanced and enriched with what we propose, we do not mean to suggest that thestudies we cite are in some way insufficient and/or incomplete. Instead, our hope is thatthe following pages prompt a conversation about how to continue to develop ourunderstanding of how we remember, and use, the past.

2 In communication, works by Browne (1999), Haines (1986), Mandziuk (2003), andStormer (2003) demonstrate how collective memories change over time, while research



by Blair and Michel (2004) illustrates how collective memories are shaped in thedevelopment of a memory site. In sociology, Barry Schwartz has been involved in twoinsightful projects that examined the processes involved in designing the Korean(Schwartz & Bayma, 1999) and Vietnam (Wagner-Pacifici & Schwartz, 1991) veteransmemorials on the Washington Mall, as well as a 2000 book that highlights how thecollective memories of Abraham Lincoln have changed through the years. In history,Mires (1999) outlines the historical meanings and uses of Independence Hall as amemory place and Sandage (1993) identifies the different meanings found with/in theLincoln Memorial at different points in time.

3 We also draw upon work in landscape studies (e.g., Birksted, 2000; Schama, 1996;Stewart & Strathern, 2003), as well as anthropologist Boyarin’s (1994) work on thenotion of ‘‘timespace,’’ in offering this idea.

4 Other collective work in communication has explored the remembered past as it isdiscursively represented in speeches, legal settings, and popular culture (e.g., Biesecker,2002; Bruner, 2000; Griffen, 2003; Hasian, 2001, 2002, 2005; Hasian & Carlson, 2000;Hasian & Frank, 1999; Titsworth & St. John, 2005).

5 Halbwachs first wrote about collective memory in 1925. We cite his later book herebecause it represents his refined and revised ideas on the subject.

6 We borrow, and adapt, this phrase from Casey (1993), who writes, ‘‘instead of thinkingof places as causing people to have certain individual and social characteristics, or simplythe reverse, we should concentrate instead on the single complex unit,‘persons-in-places’’’ (p. 305, emphasis original). We add ‘‘with’’ to Casey’s phrase inorder to emphasize the interaction of persons with/in places of memory.

7 Other scholars working in this area, of course, have referred to processes of refiguringand/or recollecting (e.g., Blair, 2006; Cox, 1990; Stormer, 2003).

8 As Hyde and Smith (1979) observe: ‘‘If the hermeneutical situation is the ‘reservoir’ ofmeaning, then rhetoric is the selecting tool for making-known this meaning. Hence, themaking-known of meaning is dependent on the selective function of rhetoric’’ (p. 354).

9 The third purpose listed is, ‘‘the chief mission church of the Episcopal Diocese ofWashington’’ (‘‘About’’).

10 Although McGee argues that the phrase ‘‘rhetorical criticism’’ moves the scholarlyenterprise away from understanding rhetoric, we use it here because it is widelyunderstood to represent a particular kind of scholarly investigation—one that istext-focused and that draws upon an understanding of the context(s) surrounding thetext.

11 This information was provided by Beth Mullen, media director for WNC, in a telephoneconversation on March 12, 2008.

12 We would have no shortage of visitors to interview; WNC attracts over 700,000 visitorsper year (Monsen, 2007).

13 Undoubtedly, some individuals would offer idiosyncratic re-collections. For example,one of the authors of this article, after seeing the moon rock in the Space Window,remembered his grandmother’s cat having kittens while the Apollo 11 crew walked onthe moon. Our intent is that re-collection studies would seek patterns of re-collectionrather than attempt to make sense of every individual’s personal process of re-collection.

14 This information was provided by Beth Mullen, media director for WNC, in a telephoneconversation on March 12, 2008.



15 Importantly, this way of thinking about re-collection demands that we focus on the‘‘existential, rather than the epistemological, as the primary structure of rhetoric’’(Nothstine, 1988, p. 158). This existential orientation, Nothstine explains, means that‘‘rhetoric always involves the attempts of finite humans to come to terms with theircondition and their finitude through language use, to orient themselves to the world oftensions and discontinuities in which they always already find themselves’’ (p. 158, italicsadded).

16 See also Browne’s (1995) review essay in which he explores how writers outside ofcommunication ‘‘collectively stress a sense of the text as a site of symbolic action, a placeof cultural performance, the meaning of which is defined by its public and persuasivefunctions’’ (p. 237).

17 Although this comparison of questions does not make explicit the metatheoreticaldifferences between rhetorical criticism and re-collection, we would be remiss in notidentifying these different commitments. Typically, rhetorical critics—notsurprisingly—embrace a critical metatheoretical orientation in that they both interpretand evaluate the texts they analyze. These evaluations often address issues related toassumptions embedded within the text (e.g., Does it promote intolerance? Is itantidemocratic? Whose voices/ideas are omitted?). Our theory of re-collection adopts aslightly different orientation. More interpretive than critical in its metatheoreticaloutlook, re-collection is primarily concerned with identifying the ways in which differentmemories are constructed with/in the memory site. Re-collection does not propose asingle, preferred reading of a text that is then evaluated, but it also does not preclude theevaluation of the re-collections found within a place of re-collection. Indeed, as we noteearlier, re-collection’s commitment to identifying multiple memories with/in a memoryplace inherently reveals issues of power. Moreover, in revealing these issues, re-collectionstudies further embrace a commitment to polyphony by allowing readers to constructtheir own interpretations and evaluations of the rhetorical work completed both with/inthe site and within the essay.

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Re-Collection: A Proposal for Refining the Study of Collective Memory and its Places

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