![Why We Memorialize](https://assets.byub.org/images/1d62ffa6-5fea-425b-9f41-ec1a2e196c62/720x405.jpg)
Why We Memorialize
Top of Mind with Julie Rose
Public Housing Myths, Why We Memorialize
Episode: Public Housing Myths, Why We Memorialize
- May 22, 2015 10:00 pm
- 52:25 mins
Guests: Jan Scruggs, founder and president of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund Greg Dickinson, Chair of the Department of Communication Studies at Colorado State University and co-editor of the book "Places of Public Memory: The Rhetoric of Museums and Memorials." Aaron Skabelund, professor of history here at BYU with an emphasis on collective memory and modern Japan. Scott Paeth, professor of Religious Studies, Peace, Justice and Conflict at DePaul University We hear from the man credited with getting one of the most iconic memorials in America built: The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. That nearly-five-hundred-foot wall of black granite on the National Mall with more than 58,000 names of veterans engraved on it. Why do we feel the urge to memorialize moments of tragedy or events in history? What moves us to erect monuments to the fallen? Or to national heroes? Or to place flowers and teddy bears on the side of the road where an accident took place? We talk about the power of memorials and collective memory.