Public Memory of the Plantation

This study is interested in how our collective memories of the past shape our lives in the present, how they construct or shore up identity, and how they manifest in the built world around us. This research attends to the ways that material practices of remembrance-museums, memorials, and monuments-related to the history of the Transatlantic slave trade operate rhetorically to uphold or challenge investments and identities in American public life. Particularly in a moment of active public discourse around this subject, I maintain a rhetorical perspective that engages questions about how, when, and where this discourse occurs and what publics and counter-publics it constructs. This study aims to interrogate the effectiveness of material and discursive rhetorical decisions in such sites by developing critical insights and perspectives for the operation of museums, memorials, and heritage sites in North Carolina and Louisiana.