Syndetics cover image
Image from Syndetics

Blunt instruments : recognizing racist cultural infrastructure in memorials, museums, and patriotic practices / Kristin Ann Hass.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Boston : Beacon Press, [2022]Copyright date: ©2022Description: 247 pages : illustrations ; 23 cmContent type:
  • text
  • still image
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9780807006719
  • 0807006718
Other title:
  • Recognizing racist cultural infrastructure in memorials, museums, and patriotic practices
Subject(s):
Contents:
Introduction: White lies matter -- Section I: Memorials. Monumental basics -- The lost cause won -- 1776-1890: Fits and starts -- 1890-1920: The first memorial boom -- The lost cause keeps winning -- 1920-1980: Living memorials and dying cities -- 1980-2010: The second memorial boom in three acts -- 2010-present: Tumbling down and rising up -- Section II: Museums. Museum basics -- White temples emerged -- Pre-1870: Cabinets of curiosities and the first American museums -- 1870-1940: The first golden age of American museums -- White temples reshaped? -- 1965-2020: King Tut and Emmett Till : the old school blockbuster and the new permanence of "Negro buildings" -- The summer of 2020 -- Section III: Patriotic practices. Patriotic practices basics -- Allegiance got pledged -- 1776-1865: A fraught beginning -- 1866-1916: Patriotism from the ground up -- Allegiance got paid for -- 1917-1976: Federally mandated patriotism -- 2001-2021: Paid patriotism and outrageous refusal -- Conclusion: Remaking a made thing.
Summary: "A field guide to the memorials, museums, and practices that commemorate white supremacy in the United States nd how to reimagine a more deeply shared cultural infrastructure for the future"-- Provided by publisher.Summary: Monuments, museums, and everyday patriotic practices have made headlines for most of the twenty-first century, yet they are seldom look at together or understood explicitly as tools used by particular people in particular times and places to shape the culture in particular ways. Hass explore the complicated histories of sites of cultural infrastructure: memorials in parks, museums visited by school kids, and routine practices of patriotism. She unearths legacies of white supremacy and traces movements to reevaluate and resist countless sites that have been doing this work, and asks that we look for sites that actually work to tell us who we are, how we came to be, and who belongs in the country. -- adapted from jacket
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 363.6908 H353 Available 33111010954804
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A field guide to the memorials, museums, and practices that commemorate white supremacy in the United States-and how to reimagine a more deeply shared cultural infrastructure for the future

Cultural infrastructure has been designed to maintain structures of inequality, and while it doesn't seem to be explicitly about race, it often is. Blunt Instruments helps readers identify, contextualize, and name elements of our everyday landscapes and cultural practices that are designed to seem benign or natural but which, in fact, work tirelessly to tell us vital stories about who we are, how we came to be, and who belongs.

Examining landmark moments such as the erection of the first American museum and Colin Kaepernick's kneeling pledge of allegiance, historian Kristin Hass explores the complicated histories of sites of cultural infrastructure, such as-

the American Museum of Natural History
the Bridge to Freedom in Selma
the Washington Monument
Mount Auburn Cemetery
Kehinde Wiley's 2019 sculpture Rumors of War
the Victory Highway
the Alamo Cenotaph

With sharp analysis and a broad lens, Hass makes the undeniable case that understanding what cultural infrastructure is, and the deep and broad impact that it has, is essential to understanding how structures of inequity are maintained and how they might be dismantled.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

"A field guide to the memorials, museums, and practices that commemorate white supremacy in the United States nd how to reimagine a more deeply shared cultural infrastructure for the future"-- Provided by publisher.

Monuments, museums, and everyday patriotic practices have made headlines for most of the twenty-first century, yet they are seldom look at together or understood explicitly as tools used by particular people in particular times and places to shape the culture in particular ways. Hass explore the complicated histories of sites of cultural infrastructure: memorials in parks, museums visited by school kids, and routine practices of patriotism. She unearths legacies of white supremacy and traces movements to reevaluate and resist countless sites that have been doing this work, and asks that we look for sites that actually work to tell us who we are, how we came to be, and who belongs in the country. -- adapted from jacket

Introduction: White lies matter -- Section I: Memorials. Monumental basics -- The lost cause won -- 1776-1890: Fits and starts -- 1890-1920: The first memorial boom -- The lost cause keeps winning -- 1920-1980: Living memorials and dying cities -- 1980-2010: The second memorial boom in three acts -- 2010-present: Tumbling down and rising up -- Section II: Museums. Museum basics -- White temples emerged -- Pre-1870: Cabinets of curiosities and the first American museums -- 1870-1940: The first golden age of American museums -- White temples reshaped? -- 1965-2020: King Tut and Emmett Till : the old school blockbuster and the new permanence of "Negro buildings" -- The summer of 2020 -- Section III: Patriotic practices. Patriotic practices basics -- Allegiance got pledged -- 1776-1865: A fraught beginning -- 1866-1916: Patriotism from the ground up -- Allegiance got paid for -- 1917-1976: Federally mandated patriotism -- 2001-2021: Paid patriotism and outrageous refusal -- Conclusion: Remaking a made thing.

Powered by Koha