A HERITAGE OF WAR, CONFLICT, AND COMMEMORATION
The journal Change Over Time: An International Journal of Conservation and the Built Environment, published by the University of Pennsylvania Press, invites submissions for the Fall 2019 issue.
Guest Editor: William Chapman
Sites of war and conflict that symbolize collective loss or that served as pivotal moments in national or global history are sometimes elevated to the status of “heritage.” Battlefields, sites of bombings, or places of terrorist attacks are all marked by human tragedy and acts of violence and their interpretation is inherently conflictual. This issue of Change Over Timeexamines heritage produced by violent acts of destruction and our efforts to commemorate the complex narratives these sites embody.
To support the interpretation of sites characterized by absence, we have often erected commemorative memorials of various forms from plaques and commissioned statuary to the presentation of charred and damaged remnants of what stood before. Examples featuring the vestiges of physical destruction include: the hull of the USS Arizona, sunk during Japan’s 7 December 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor; the skeleton of the domed administrative building that marked the zero point of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima in August 1945; the stabilized walls of St. Michael’s Cathedral in Coventry, a victim of the German Luftwaffe’s November 1940 blitz; and the “Survivors’ Stairs,” the last remaining element of the World Trade Center following its destruction on 11 September 2001. In this issue, we invite contributors to interrogate the types and nature of heritage produced out of war and conflict, the forms of its commemoration, and the challenges associated with its conservation. We encourage contributors to consider the influence of class, politics, and culture in commemorative expressions; the technical and conceptual challenges of conserving objects or places of destruction; inclusive or conflicting (re)interpretation; and evolving perceptions of places over time.