At the small liberal arts university where I work, we offer a travel course entitled “The Rhetoric of War.” The course examines the way that rhetorics (both verbal and graphic) depict war, patriotism, and the nation-state in the American context. Midway through the semester, the class takes a whirlwind trip to Washington D.C. in order to directly engage the ways in which war is memorialized.
My friend and colleague, Dr. Amy Milakovic, is one of the faculty who teaches that course; she has a forthcoming paper about the experience, with particular focus paid to the Women In Military Service For America (WIMSFA) Memorial. As Dr. Milakovic argues, the attempt to honor military women at WIMSFA happens through a narrative that works only to the degree that it actually diminishes women. WIMFSA achieves this by reinforcing traditional gendered stereotypes at the same time that its physical appearance emphasizes invisibility and insignificance, two terrible ironies achieved in a place that claims to highlight and celebrate women in the military. Continue reading “The Memory That Forgets: The Women in Military Service for America Memorial”
Being a basketball fan is almost automatic when you are born in Kentucky. As a Kentucky Wildcat fan, I certainly have enjoyed this perfect basketball season, but I have been a fan of the Cats in the less-than-perfect years, too. I even remember exactly where I was when Christian Laettner hit that infamous shot twenty-three years ago. If you’re over thirty and don’t know where you were when that dagger went through the heart of the Big Blue Nation, I am not certain that you can call yourself a true fan.