Suspended Identification:

Joshua Reeves University of Memphis

Abstract

ABSTRACTAs commemorative artifacts have come to saturate our public culture, many scholars have revisited the question of genre and the commemorative experience. Responding to this work, I argue that by subverting the commonplaces of our commemorative culture, certain works of public memory have the capacity to suspend audiences in a deferred event of identification. I describe the creative potential of this process by arguing that when compelled to forge common ground with an atopon (out-of-place) work of public memory, one can be unsettled in one's ordinary habits and resituated toward the world and toward others. By redescribing the problem of identification as it relates to the disruption of our everyday rhetorical encounters, this article's significance extends beyond public memory and suggests the transformative potential of suspense and the out-of-place in our broader rhetorical culture.

Journal
Philosophy & Rhetoric
Published
2013-07-01
DOI
10.5325/philrhet.46.3.0306
Open Access
Closed
Topics

Citation Context

Cited by in this index (3)

  1. College Composition and Communication
  2. Philosophy & Rhetoric
  3. Philosophy & Rhetoric

Cites in this index (4)

  1. Philosophy & Rhetoric
  2. Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  3. Rhetoric Society Quarterly
  4. College Composition and Communication
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