Reckoning, Restoration, and Inauguration?

By

This week, my group finished curating and presented our final display. Unlike past weeks, much of the work we did was outside of the archives; last weekend, we each wrote case summaries and call-out labels, and on Monday we presented everything to the class. Perhaps more than anything else, my group spent the majority of the past week thinking about our case summary. Although we had a general idea of what we wanted to say, I think we all found it fairly difficult to actually say (in a clear and succinct manner). Beyond our case summary, we also spent a fair amount of time thinking about our classmates’ presentations. Although our work is done, part of me wishes that we had more time to talk to/collaborate with the other groups, particularly since they did many things that I found surprising and clever (e.g., I thought “Student Life” had a great layout; Women at Kenyon also had a very thoughtful narrative).

In terms of this week’s reading, one thing that I found interesting was Yazdiha’s discussion of reckoning and restoration in Chapter 6. In the chapter, Yazdiha analyzes invocations of the civil rights movement in the #MeToo movement, such as Oprah’s talking about Recy Taylor at the Golden Globe Awards. In addition to describing the relationship between power and memory (such as she did when talking about the racial boundaries of memory in Chapter 5), Yazidha focuses in on how some historically less powerful groups (e.g., women, black women) have done memory work in order to heal, set the record straight, and move forward. Such work is exemplified by those who participated in the #MeToo movement, as well as those who did similar things before the movement (e.g., Carmita Wood). Sadly, some of the stories included in this chapter demonstrate just how pernicious power/positionality is to memory (here I’m thinking of Anita Hill and Recy Taylor). Although someone might hold/posit a truthful memory, the likelihood of their memory being considered truthful by others may very well hinge on who they are (or what they look like).

Although I didn’t work on “Women at Kenyon”, I do think the work that my classmates did on this exhibit likely involved thinking about “reckoning and restoration” (Yazdiha 2023:162). Indeed, I also suspect that the folks who worked on the “50 Years of Women at Kenyon” celebration also wrestled with the same kinds of questions/problems (e.g., how has history obscured the lives of women at Kenyon? How might one highlight the lives of women of color at Kenyon?). As we move into this week, I’m interested to see if these discussions will continue on campus, given the impending inauguration of President Kornfeld. I wonder if her presidency will galvanize some folks to further celebrate/remember the lives of women at Kenyon. I also wonder what memories/groups will be pushed to the periphery during her presidency (if any will).


References


Yazdiha, Hajar. 2023. The Struggle for the People’s King: How Politics Transforms the Memory of the Civil Rights Movement. Princeton: Princeton University Press

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Junzo Shono: How We Remember Gambier

By
Image
When I entered the Special Collections room, I had no idea where to start or what to do. We were given large files of several notable Kenyon alumni, and it was overwhelming. Without a clear understanding of the responsibilities we were tasked with, we each selected a different file without giving reason or pause as to who we selected. For one reason or another, Junzo Shono’s name caught my eye. I had never heard of the man, but after taking a class on Japanese Literature last fall, I was curious as to who he was and his involvement with the College. Junzo Shono, an acclaimed Japanese writer, first came to Gambier in 1957, where he spent a year in the College capturing and describing the mundane moments of everyday life (Creel, 2022). He would eventually publish these memories in the form of a novel titled “Gambia Taizaiki” (Sojourn in Gambier. He was born in Osaka, Japan on February 9th, 1921, and studied at Osaka University of Foreign Languages for four years, and later studied at Kyu...
Read more

Archival and Canon Memory: Understanding Our Present Through Our Past

By
Image
  This week, one of the many artifacts my group examined, was an old issue of The Collegian. The main story of this issue was the reconstruction of the Brown Family Environmental Center. This edition of the Collegian was significant because it detailed certain transformations being made to the center that would give it more focus on academics and incorporating student education as a part of the BFEC. For example, the article focuses on the construction of a new building that will operate as a hub for both student labs, as well as environmental education programs for the public, which the BFEC is now well known for. This article is also historically significant as it was written right after the BFEC was renamed to the Brown Family Environmental Center. It is important to examine sources like these, as they offer what the earliest perspectives and actions of what the BFEC were, which is interesting to compare to modern activities of the environmental center. This week we also read an...
Read more

Hope, Suffering, and The Kenyon College Campus Guide

By
Image
  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 co...
Read more