Experiencing War Memorials – Environment, Affect, and Public Memory

Examines the emotional, formal, and environmental dimensions of war commemoration

Experiencing War Memorials is a compelling edited collection of essays that examines how war is commemorated through public memorials and the powerful emotions and ideologies these sites generate. Drawing on fields such as war studies, affect studies, public memory studies, and the environmental humanities, the volume demonstrates that commemoration is not only an intellectual act but an embodied, affective experience.

Through diverse case studies, contributors analyze how memorials shape public feelings about fast and slow violence, including battles, massacres, and incarceration. The essays reveal how materials, landscapes, narrative conventions, and innovative memorial forms guide emotional responses such as grief, pride, ambivalence, and outrage while making injustice perceptible. Against the backdrop of ongoing debates over heritage and violence, the collection insists on the importance of attending to the messy and disordered emotional dimensions of public memory. Some essays explore varied human and animal experiences, including military working dogs; scrutinize unsettling sites such as Confederate monuments and overlooked Holocaust locations; and consider digital, ecological, and pandemic-era memorials that expand the boundaries of commemoration.

Edited by Jennifer K. Ladino, Experiencing War Memorials offers nuanced insights into how memorial practices shape national identities, ethical understanding, and the possibilities for social change, illuminating the profound ways public remembrance influences how societies feel, remember, and reckon with violence in all its forms. This volume will appeal to scholars and students of memory studies, war and cultural studies, environmental humanities, and American studies, as well as museum professionals, artists, and readers interested in the politics and emotions of public commemoration.
 

Jennifer K. Ladino is a professor of English at the University of Idaho. She is the author of Reclaiming Nostalgia: Longing for Nature in American Literature and Memorials Matter: Emotion, Environment, and Public Memory at American Historical Sites. She is the coeditor of Affective Ecocriticism: Emotion, Embodiment, Environment.