Navigating Memorialization and Commemoration on U.S. Campuses: Approaches to Crisis Recovery

This text explores how institutions of higher education in the US can effectively remember incidents of campus crisis through physical memorials and commemoration, highlighting the performative functions of these memorials and their utility for the extended campus community. It profiles existing campus memorials and offers insights from students, faculty, community members, and the loved ones of those memorialized, illustrating how institutional decisions and long-term strategy can navigate the politics of memorialization and help communities move beyond collective trauma.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 142 pages
Publication date: 25 September 2023
Publisher: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Drawing on rich qualitative data, as well as theoretical and conceptual frameworks, this text explores how institutions of higher education in the US can effectively remember incidents of campus crisis through physical memorials and commemoration. Recognizing memorialization as a process of group and individual recovery, the book foregrounds the performative functions of physical memorials and highlights their utility for the extended campus community. Profiling existing campus memorials in the US, and offering insights from students, faculty, community members, and the loved ones of those memorialized, the text illustrates how institutional decisions and long-term strategy can serve to effectively navigate the politics of memorialization, helping communities move beyond incidents of collective trauma.

This text will benefit researchers, academics, and educators with an interest in emergency management, student affairs practice, and higher education administration, and commemorative literature more broadly. Those specifically interested in heritage studies, public history, and American history will also benefit from this book.

Weight: 453g
Dimension: 229 x 152 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780367761042