TCDS Presents: “The Vietnam Women’s Memorial: Dialogical Memory and Mixed Genres of Commemoration” Wednesday 9/13 @ The New School!
The Transregional Center for Democratic Studies (TCDS) at NSSR is excited to announce our first event of the Fall semester, co-hosted with the Sociology Department & The Memory Group, titled The Vietnam Women’s Memorial: Dialogical Memory and Mixed Genres of Commemoration. The lecture by Monika Zychlinska, part of the Sociology Brown Bag Series, will be commented on by Sociology Professor and long time TCDS friend and collaborator Prof. Jeffrey Goldfarb. We hope to see you at the Sociology Common Lounge Area (9th floor, 6 E 16th st.) on Wednesday 9/13!
The Vietnam Women’s Memorial: Dialogical Memory and Mixed Genres of Commemoration
by Monika Zychlinska
Comments by Professor Jeffrey Goldfarb
Wednesday, September 13
12 pm – 1:30 pm Sociology Common Lounge Area
6 East 16th Street, 9th floor
Coffee and refreshments provided by TCDS & the Memory Group
Inaugurated in 1993, the Vietnam Women’s Memorial commemorates women of the United States who served in the Vietnam War, most of whom were nurses. My research seeks to understand the politics of memory surrounding this memorial. How does the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Project (VWMP) respond to earlier commemorations of the Vietnam War? What new interpretations does it offer? How does it portray veterans, especially female veterans? Finally, how has this commemorative effort been inscribed into the overall struggle to to provide this controversial war with an acceptable social interpretation? Funded by the Polish National Science Center, my research project, entitled “Against Stigma and Invisibility: Identity Politics of the Vietnam Women’s Memorial Project (VWMP),” closely examines the dialogical memory and mixed genres of commemoration this memorial represents.
Monika Żychlińska is a sociologist, Americanist, and doctoral candidate at the University of Warsaw’s Institute of Sociology. Her research interests include cultural memory – especially the memory of war and trauma – and its influence on shaping individual and collective identities, gender, and social movements. She was a visiting researcher at the New School for Social Research in 2012/13 (thanks to a grant from the Kościuszko Foundation). She recently published an article co-authored with Erica Fontana, entitled “Museal Games and Emotional Truths: Creating Polish National Identity at the Warsaw Rising Museum” in East European Politics, Societies and Cultures (2016) Volume 2: 235-269.
E-mail: monika.zychlinska@gmail.com
