Moment to Monument: The Making and Unmaking of Cultural Significance (in collaboration with Regula Hohl Trillini, Jennifer Jermann and Markus Marti) (Cultural Studies)

Why do certain works of art make it into the canon while others just enjoy a brief moment of recognition, if at all? How do moments produce monuments, and why are monuments erased from our cultural memory in only a moment? - Taking into account these cultural processes of creating, storing, remembering and forgetting that are omnipresent and have an immense influence on how we perceive artefacts and cultural events, the articles in this collection analyze the phenomenon of cultural production, transmission and reception from various angles, drawing on approaches from both literary and cultural studies. With its transdisciplinary approach, this book uniquely responds to an everyday cultural phenomenon that so far has not received such wide-ranging attention. Table of Contents Acknowledgements Introduction 1 exegi monumentum Texts, monuments and the desire for immortality “Plunging into nothingness”: The politics of cultural memory A monumental inscription: The transcultural heritage of Swift’s epitaph Monuments and memorials: Byron and Wordsworth in post-Napoleonic Switzerland 2 questioning canon politics “Monumental mockery”: Does a three-text edition of Hamlet threaten the play’s canonicity? How the West was won: J.M. Coetzee and postcolonial canons “We the people”: The U.S. Government’s recent recruitment of literature for nation building 3 negotiating the past – imagining the future Under the blue bottle: Habsburg nostalgia in post-Soviet L’viv Monumentalizing the Twin Towers: Memory and garbage in the global city Hurricane Katrina and the arts of remembrance Revisiting Martyrs’ Square ... again: Absence and presence in cultural memory 4 reterritorialization The burden of the moment: Photography’s inherent monumentalizing eff ect Coyote in the land of culture industry: Robert Crumb and popular cultural memory Canons, orthodoxies, ghosts and dead statues Contributors Texts by Andrew Hui, Aleida Assmann, Peter Davidhazi, Patrick Vincent, Ann Thompson, Lily Saint, Lisbeth Fuisz, Ihor Junyk, Christoph Lindner, Benjamin Morris, Nour Dados, Peter Burleigh, Nicola Glaubitz, David Morley. Why do certain works of art make it into the canon while others just enjoy a brief moment of recognition, if at all? How do moments produce monuments, and why are monuments erased from our cultural memory in only a moment? - Taking into account these cultural processes of creating, storing, remembering and forgetting that are omnipresent and have an immense influence on how we perceive artefacts and cultural events, the articles included in this collection analyze the phenomenon of cultural production, transmission and reception from various angles, drawing on approaches from both literary and cultural studies. With its transdisciplinary approach, this book uniquely responds to an everyday cultural phenomenon that up to now has not been given such wide-ranging attention Why do certain works of art make it into the canon while others just enjoy a brief moment of recognition, if at all? How do moments produce monuments, and why are monuments erased from our cultural memory in only a moment? - Taking into account these cultural processes of creating, storing, remembering and forgetting that are omnipresent and have an immense influence on how we perceive artefacts and cultural events, the articles in this collection analyze the phenomenon of cultural production, transmission and reception from various angles, drawing on approaches from both literary and cultural studies. With its transdisciplinary approach, this book uniquely responds to an everyday cultural phenomenon that so far has not received such wide-ranging attention. Cultural Memory,Monumentalization,Canon,Cultural History,Representation,Memory Culture,Cultural Studies,History "Why do certain works of art make it into the canon while others just enjoy a brief moment of recognition, if at all? How do moments produce monuments, and why are monuments erased from our cultural memory in only a moment? Taking into account the cultural processes of creating, storing, remembering and forgetting that are omnipresent and have an immense influence on how we perceive artifacts and cultural events, the essays in this collection analyze the phenomenon of cultural production, transmission and reception from various angles, drawing on approaches from both literary and cultural studies. With its transdisciplinary approach, this book uniquely responds to an everyday cultural phenomenon that so far has not received wide-ranging attention."--BOOK JACKET