Monumentality, Ruination, and the Milieux of Memory: Lessons from W. E. B. Du Bois

This essay examines memorial style as a rhetorical "milieu" in which geographies of race and racism are constructed. To do so, I trace W. E. B. Du Bois's turn-of-the-century encounter with antebellum plantation ruin as an instance of historic and still ongoing Black resistance to monu...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Western journal of communication 2023-03, Vol.87 (2), p.281-303
Main Author: Wells, Justine
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
African Americans
Black history
Black Memory
Du Bois, W E B (1868-1963)
Lineage
Memory
Monumentality
Race
Racial Stylistics
Racism
Resistance
Ruin
Stylistics
W. E. B. Du Bois
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Summary:This essay examines memorial style as a rhetorical "milieu" in which geographies of race and racism are constructed. To do so, I trace W. E. B. Du Bois's turn-of-the-century encounter with antebellum plantation ruin as an instance of historic and still ongoing Black resistance to monumental stylistics that have long dominated Western memory. Situating Du Bois's encounter with ruin in this lineage illuminates how monumentality can undergird supremacist modes of inhabiting space and race and opens onto alternative, ecological styles of memorial dwelling enabled and called for by Black experiences of the ruinous wake of slavery.
ISSN:1057-0314
1745-1027
DOI:10.1080/10570314.2022.2118552