Should We Memorialize Violence?

Guest: Kenneth Foote, PhD, Professor of Historical Geography, University of Connecticut, Author of “Shadowed Ground: America’s Landscapes of Violence and Tragedy” Why is it that, after a tragedy, we build a memorial at the site? Maybe it starts as a makeshift monument – a pile of flowers, cards, stuffed animals and candles. Sometimes it evolves into something more formal where a community chooses to permanently memorialize a traumatic event like a mass shooting or terrorist attack. In the aftermath of a tragedy, there is always a tension between wanting to remember and wanting to forget. (Originally aired 11/13/2017)