2014: “Survivor Objects: The Material Culture of Memory”

Remnants from Belgian Army Ammunition Disposal Unit CC 2.0

Remnants from Belgian Army Ammunition Disposal Unit CC 2.0

November 14-15, 2014

“Survivor Objects” considers the cultural power accrued by artifacts that have endured social conflict.  By bearing historical witness, such objects can come to hold a privileged place in cultural memory and, as a result, play a powerful role for present-day communities.

View/Print Flyer and Program Here!

Program:

Friday, November 14

1:00 – 1:45

Registration and refreshments

1:45

Welcome and Opening Remarks

2:00 – 4:15

Session I: Relics of War, chaired by Professor Kariann Yokota, University of Colorado

Christine M. DeLucia, Assistant Professor, Mount Holyoke College
Philip’s Corn Bowl, Weetamoo’s Grinding Stone

Gregg D. Kimball, Director, Public Services and Outreach–Library of Virginia
Phillip Troutman, Assistant Professor, George Washington University
Objectifying Bondage: The Expropriation of Slavery Artifacts in the Civil War Era

Jane E Klinger, Chief of Conservation, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Tempered by Trauma, Tempered by Pride, Tempered by Hope

Nan Wolverton, Director, Center for Historic American Visual Culture, American
Antiquarian Society
Souvenirs of Violence: Salvaged Objects and Remembrance of War

4:30 p.m.

Keynote Talk: Professor Marita Sturken, New York University

The Scale of Memory: Architecture, Objects, and the 9-11 Museum

Reception: Clayton Hall Conference Center,
University of Delaware

Saturday, November 15

9:15 – 11:30

Session II: Icons and Iconoclasm, chaired by Professor Wendy Bellion, University of
Delaware

Alyssa D. Anderson, Doctoral Candidate, Brown University
Whatever Happened to Marx? The Art of Forgetting in Budapest’s Memento
Park

Laura Turner Igoe, Postdoctoral Associate, Princeton University Art Museum
“Let Us Each Take a Relic from that Hallowed Tree”: The Materiality of
Penn’s Treaty Elm

Jennifer C. Van Horn, Assistant Professor, George Mason University
Acts of Artistic Resistance: Iconoclasm and Slavery in the Civil War South

Heghnar Watenpaugh, Associate Professor, University of California, Davis
The Zeytun Gospels and its Publics, from Genocide to Reparations

11:30 – 1:30

Lunch and UD Art Gallery Tour

1:30 – 3:30

Session III: Survivor Sites, chaired by Professor Akiko Takenaka, University of
Kentucky

Catherine Morrissey, Research Associate, Center for Historic
Architecture and
Design, University of Delaware
Missing Memory: The Lost Landscapes of Fort Delaware

Chandra Reedy, Professor, University of Delaware
Objects of Conflict and Resolution at the Buddhist Temple and
Monastery of Kangwu, Muli Tibetan Autonomous County,
Sichuan Province, China

Stefanie Elisabeth Sobelle, Assistant Professor, Gettysburg College
Reenactment Culture and the Violence Against Architecture

4:00 p.m.

Roundtable and Open Discussion, Chaired by Margaret Stetz, Professor, University of Delaware
Closing Remarks
Reception: Clayton Hall Conference Center, University of Delaware

Select recordings from Survivor Objects proceedings: