From Upper Canal to Lower Manhattan: Memorialization and the Politics of Loss

Abstract

The New Orleans Katrina Memorial is located at the upper end of Canal Street, an inexpensive and relatively short trolley car ride from the city's tourist hub in the French Quarter. Despite its ease of access, and close proximity to the more famous cemeteries to which tourists regularly make pilgrimage, the memorial is little visited and largely unknown, even to many of the city's own residents. In this it stands in stark contrast to the National September 11 Memorial in Lower Manhattan, which drew its millionth visitor less than four months after its opening on September 12, 2011. Recent work in political theory on memory, mourning, and memorialization—as well as Ancient Greek concerns about the same—point to the ways in which the manner of remembrance, grieving, and commemoration employed by a democratic polity help to shape political outcomes. In what follows, I trace the history and design of the New York City and New Orleans memorials to suggest the ways in which they embody and perpetuate national strategies of remembrance and forgetting, in which injustices perpetratedagainstthe polity are prioritized over injustices perpetratedwithinit. Drawing on John Bodnar's distinction between national and vernacular commemoration, I nevertheless conclude with a counter-intuitive suggestion: that while on anationallevel the public's relative ignorance of the Katrina Memorial is indeed indicative of a polity more concerned with injustices perpetrated against it than within it; on alocallevel the erection and subsequent forgetting of the Katrina Memorial is a manifestation of a mode ofvernacularmemory, mourning and commemoration with far more democratically-productive potential than its counterpart in New York City. In particular, I argue that it cultivates, and historicallyhascultivated, a more forward-looking, progressive, and polyphonic response to loss than the type of dominant national narratives embodied by the 9/11 Memorial. Whereas the latter continually replays the loss in ways that rob the polity of its capacity to move beyond its initial response, the former acknowledges and incorporates the loss while steeling the community for the challenges ahead.

Grieving Critically: Barack Obama and the Counter-Eulogy

“…In recent years, a number of scholars have begun critically assessing America’s memorials and mourning practices (see Blaire 1999, 16–57; Hirsch & McIvor 2019; Johnston 2007, 115–60; Johnston 2015; Stow 2017). Many of these scholars have observed that, like the national eulogy, America’s commemorative rituals offer “a fundamentally conservative” perspective (Abramson 1996, 707), “suppress oppositional narratives” (Stow 2012, 687), facilitate “politically regressive” political agendas (Sturken 2002, 382), and are “tantamount to self-celebration, mere glorifying and aggrandizement” (Johnston 2007, 116). 9 And so, these scholars have proposed new modes of mourning, suggesting modifications that might allow America’s commemorative practices to deliver not just comfort and self-affirmation, but also transformative social critique.…”

“…Others endorse commemorative practices that “invite a plurality of voices into the process” and highlight the complexity and contestability of tragic events (McIvor 2016, 159). And still others suggest adopting elements of various African American funeral traditions—practices that “mourn[] the dead while also seeking to generate a better future for those left behind” (Stow 2012, 693–95).…”

“…11.Commemorative rituals that “mourn[ed] the dead while also imagining and seeking to generate a better future for those left behind” (Stow 2012, 693).…”

Mourning work: Death and democracy during a pandemic

“…On this reading, how citizens organize collectively in response to loss has crucial implications for democracy. In this vein, McIvor ( 2016 ) and Stow ( 2017 ) identify models of democratic mourning that eschew certitude, embrace ambivalence and complexity, and reject unitary national narratives, while Stow ( 2012 ) finds in vernacular African-American mourning traditions a necessary counter-memory to romantic modes of national public mourning committed to memorializing injuries against the nation and forgetting those committed within it. McIvor and Hirsch ( 2019 , p. xx) condense many of these claims about mourning as a democratic resource when they argue that: ‘Citizens and communities can identify and practice a variety of arts of democratic mourning and, by acting in the face of these bitter experiences, momentarily reclaim and inhabit their birthright as political beings’.…”