Hope, Suffering, and The Kenyon College Campus Guide

 

Attached above is a screenshot of “The Kenyon College Campus Guide”, which is a near-comprehensive list of buildings that have belonged to the College and Village of Gambier since 1824. Although my group is curating something about the future of the Hill, our first meeting mainly involved discussions of its past. To this end, we tried to develop a picture of what the Hill physically looked like in the past 100 years by reviewing photographs of buildings, construction plans, and the Campus Guide, which you can see above. If you were to review the entire guide, you’d see that under the name of every building is a description of when it was built, what it was used (or being used) for, and when (if) it was destroyed. In the context of this week’s reading, these descriptions call the terms “communities of memory” and “communities of hope” to mind.

According to Bellah et al. (1985, 2011), a “community of memory…tell[s]...stories of shared suffering” and orients us towards “future communities…of hope (229). In addition to defining what a community of memory is, Bellah et al. also discuss some kinds and practices of communities of memories, such as the “practices of commitment” (e.g., reading “scriptural stories”) that characterize religious communities (ibid.). One thing that stood out to me about this passage was its emphasis on hope and history (“Where history and hope are forgotten and community means only the gathering of the similar, community degenerates into lifestyle enclave.”), which seems relevant to the general project of the Bicentennial. I also think I found this passage remarkable because ‘it’s relatable’ – when I think of the communities that are most important to me (i.e., my friendships), I realize that they’re also predicated on hope and history. For example, my two closest friends from freshman year were my two closest friends because we (1) consistently looked forward to seeing each other (I know this because we all said it) and (2) consistently talked about shared memories (like the time my one friend tried to start a union-busting club).

    Although I might have touched on it somewhat, I think that Bellah et al.’s discussion of communities of memory and practices of commitment are relevant to my work because I am seeking to preserve a community of memory by recording its practices of commitment. Indeed, the Guide that I’ve attached is a great artifact of a community of memory – it contains descriptions of shared sufferings (such as buildings burnt) and triumphs (such as buildings built/reconstructed). Moreover, the very act of the Bicentennial is a kind of practice of commitment, given that it has ritual-like qualities and a timely significance.