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Dr. Lauren E. Obermark obermarkl@umsl.edu “Expanding the Canon of Memory: A Case Study of the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum” (RSA 2014) (This is a work-in-progress; please do not reproduce this paper without permission from the author.) Introduction: Historical Museums and Rhetorical Education

In this presentation, I aim to further revive memory as a canon of rhetoric by

systematically laying out what I call a pedagogy of memory. My analysis is rooted

in qualitative data collected at the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum,

which serves as both an educational space for the general public and an explicitly

commemorative space for the victims and survivors of the 1995 Oklahoma City

bombing. The mission statement of the museum emphasizes that that the “top two

priorities are remembrance and education,” and these priorities point to why the

OKC National Memorial Museum is a particularly relevant site for an exploration

of the pedagogy of memory. Specifically, my analysis theorizes this emerging

pedagogy of memory as: 1) value-driven and often reliant on epideictic rhetoric

and 2) thoughtfully utilizing material rhetoric and multimodal approaches to

remembrance and education.1 Finally, I suggest how the pedagogy of memory, in

its frequent commitment to civic engagement, can inform—and potentially

transform—practices for rhetorical education.

                                                                                                               1 Two other pieces of my theory, cut for time, but I’ll gladly answer any questions if you’re curious: 3) respectful of personal connections to an event and frequently collaborative; and 4) constantly evolving as context(s) surrounding history and memory change.

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To clarify what I mean when I use the term rhetorical education: I should

say that my overriding theoretical framework for the larger project from which I

draw this case study is how instruction in rhetoric, writing, and communication is

linked to citizenship. Rhetorical education in our field is often discussed as a

historical interest or within the purview of the classroom, but I am motivated to

explore diverse present-day practices of extracurricular rhetorical education, and I

suggest that historical museums are especially rich sites for such research since

they are frequently concerned with educating about the past as a way to raise

awareness and advocacy in the present. For instance, with this case study at the

OKC National Memorial Museum, it became clear to me that memory, by its very

nature, is pedagogical—by selecting what is remembered and deciding how that

memory is represented, citizens are taught lessons not just about history but about

how they should participate and engage. Though such an approach can build

toward civic engagement, the frequently didactic nature of value-driven education

can also suppress choices and voices and oversimplify difficult topics (like

trauma), so I will address the potential benefits and drawbacks of connecting

memory and rhetorical education.

Situating My Work

I won’t belabor the literature review but suffice it to say, as the formation of

this panel and many others in your RSA program (not to mention the pages of RSQ

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and Rhetoric Review), rhetorical studies has not been immune to what historian Jay

Winter dubbed “the memory boom.” Which is to say, while some scholars (myself

included) worry about the regression of memory as a canon, over the last fifteen

years or so, we have indeed been talking a lot about memory and in a lot of

different ways. I have included a bibliography on my handout of the various

scholars I find myself frequently in conversation with as I write about rhetoric and

memory. I also find pulling from other disciplines useful to my methods and

theorization, and my larger project finds itself situated in museum studies and

trauma studies—necessary situating since the museums I research are representing

traumatic events, such as this bombing, war, and slavery. You’ll see many of these

names on the bibliography, as well.

My Intervention

Though the recent work of scholars makes headway into expanding memory

as a canon and renewing its usefulness for the 21st century, I want to establish a

rhetorical pedagogy of memory, a direction existing scholarship has not yet moved.

Specifically, my case study of the OKC National Memorial Museum continues to

examine memory as rhetorical, but this is a site of memory that is very much

evolving and constantly (re)created. Accordingly, the present-day and ever-

changing nature of the OKC National Memorial Museum brings rhetorical

education to the forefront of this discussion. The rhetorical work of this site is first

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and foremost committed to educating these guests as citizens—citizens who need

to know about a historic event to enhance their present-day civic awareness. Now

to take a closer look at some of the exhibits at the OKC Museum and how they

inform this emerging pedagogy of memory.

The Pedagogy of Memory and Epideictic Rhetoric: Values and Control in the

Children’s Area

Mission Statement in the Children’s Area

To both honor the memory of the many young victims of the bombing and

connect with and educate even the youngest guests, a substantial Children’s Area

was included in the OKC National Memorial Museum. The Memorial Mission

Statement, adopted on March 26, 1996, states: “The Memorial Complex should

have a component designed to meet kids on ‘their level,’ physically and

cognitively. The component should help children learn and feel something they can

carry with them as they grow and should offer them assurance that the world holds

far more good than bad” (my emphasis). This final and moralistic piece of the

mission statement demonstrates memory’s strong connection to epideictic rhetoric.

According to the Mission Statement, in the Children’s Area, remembering

the bombing is associated with promoting positive values; namely, the Children’s

Area paints a version of the bombing itself and the future that is full of helpful

people and kindness among humans; my interviews with staff members echo these

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values—some repeated words that came up in an interview question about the

messages of the museum (and not just referencing the Children’s Area) include

“respect,” “helpfulness,” and “personal responsibility.” Though such values are all

common ones to teach children and certainly do align with events surrounding the

bombing, I also see undeniable danger in highlighting these “feel good” aspects of

the bombing while avoiding some of more difficult to communicate and

understand parts. With an epideictic approach, the memory of the event is shaped

in a way that is, perhaps, overly optimistic, even misleading. Even more, the

intense institutional control over the memory of the bombing raises further

questions. While freedom of choice is often touted in today’s museum education,

memory remains highly controlled—indeed this is a tension I have observed in all

my case study museums.

Children’s Book

The theme of “good people” overpowering the “bad people” in the world

continues throughout the Children’s Area and much of the museum. For instance,

one of the beginning activities involves reading a large children’s book about the

bombing entitled A Day to Remember, a huge book with sturdy plastic pages and

colorful illustrations that share about the bombing and its aftermath, with a heavy

focus on rebuilding. The obvious goal of this book is to make these young visitors

more familiar with the Oklahoma City Bombing, an event that happened well

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before they were born—and all of this is shared in a decidedly child-friendly way.

Though one goal is just to communicate this basic historical information, epideictic

rhetoric also shapes the pedagogy of memory in this book to provide a value-based

rhetorical education.

In A Day to Remember, memory of the bombing and how Oklahoma City

recovered are linked to positive values, and remembering itself is assumed to be an

act of self-improvement and involvement. In other words, through memory, young

visitors can become better citizens. For example, page five of the book depicts the

actual bombing. The Murrah Building is destroyed and smoking, cars are smashed,

and small fires pop up in various places. In the middle of this chaos, though, there

is a very special tree.2 The text on page five reads: “Other buildings near the

Murrah Building were also damaged. Windows were broken, and walls fell down.

Glass was everywhere. Cars parked near the building were on fire. Right in the

middle of the burning cars there was a tree that did not fall down. The tree was

badly burned, but it stood tall—it SURVIVED!” Though this page does offer basic

information about the bombing itself, those details are limited; the building is

named, and the rest of the details are non-specific and could be about nearly any

destructive event. The value of survival/overcoming is the main message here. The

embrace of the epideictic as part of the pedagogy of memory, particularly as it                                                                                                                2 The “Survivor Tree,” a stunning and aptly named tree that survived the bombing, has a powerful presence at the OKC National Memorial Museum, referenced in various exhibits and promotional materials. It is also part of the memorial itself. Memorial tours meet under this tree and learn its story and significance.

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promotes positive life lessons and values, also illustrates an avoidance of less

easily digestible aspects of a traumatic event. This is a pattern that emerges

throughout my research at historical museums: museums struggle to engage topics

like violence and death in a sustained way because they have (valid) concerns that

this may only depress visitors and deter them from coming at all. Such concern is

not misplaced since American culture generally evades such difficult topics in

educational, as well as social, scenarios. At the OKC National Memorial Museum,

starting a dialogue about the very real loss and violence of this event and what it

can mean for children as they become adults is replaced with an emphasis on the

survival and growth of Oklahoma City—important lessons, to be sure, but ones

that avoid complexity to some extent.

While the connection to values and morals holds promise for the future of

rhetorical education since the development of citizenship is encouraged, the

centrality of epideictic rhetoric in the pedagogy of memory poses risks in terms of

institutional control and simplifying the trauma into a value lesson or overcoming

narrative, further marginalizing the discussion of taboo topics, like death or

terrorism. This is a trend across the museums I have studied, and it does align with

a feature of public discourse, as well: we tend to avoid the hard parts and focus on

the inspiration—those are the stories we like to tell and hear. The Children’s Area

at the OKC National Memorial museum is most concerned with the young guests

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taking away “the moral of the story,” which is, as articulated in the museum’s

mission statement: “the world holds far more good than bad.”

But as the remainder of my presentation will show, there are ways to allow

for choice in terms of content and modes of communication—directions I see as

promising for the future of rhetorical education.

The Pedagogy of Memory as Material: The Use of Personal Objects and

Photos to Disrupt Narrative Structure in the Gallery of Honor

One of the most powerful sections of the OKC National Memorial Museum

is the Gallery of Honor.3 In terms of the design, it breaks from the rest of the

museum because once guests enter the space, they no longer feel like they are in a

museum at all. While the rest of the museum is filled with text, video, audio,

artifacts, and photos, this area is sparse by comparison. Clear boxes cover the

walls, and no other décor is present. There are 168 boxes; one for each of the

victims. Inside each box is a photograph of the victim along with a representative

personal object. Victims’ families donated the photos and the objects. Underneath

the boxes are bronze plaques that list all the victims’ names. Those engraved

plaques are the only words that are part of the actual exhibit. It is a largely silent

space as visitors sit on the bench and take it all in or walk around the room and

peer in the boxes, studying the photos and objects.

                                                                                                               3 The sacred feeling cultivated in this space made me reluctant to take photos, so there are none included in this section. On the OKCNMM website, you can find a video tour of this gallery.

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This gallery is comparable to a mausoleum, and it initially appears almost

completely removed from educational imperatives. The pedagogy of memory

continues here, though. The introductory placard goes more in depth about the

methods and purpose of this gallery and indicates the underlying pedagogy:

Every person who was killed leaves behind family and friends who

remember the uniqueness of their loved one. It is that individuality

this gallery hopes to recognize. The artifact in each case—chosen by

the family—provides a sense of the lives of their loved ones. It is a

gallery of hobbies and passions, hopes and dreams. It is a gallery of

everyday people and extraordinary loss. It is a gallery of honor.

In other words, this gallery aims to teach visitors by the simultaneously ordinary

and unique examples of those who were lost. Epideictic rhetoric is still powerfully

employed in this gallery and in a more classical way than in the Children’s Area. It

is similar to a eulogy since the overarching goal is to pay homage to the victims of

the tragedy.

But there is new twist to the epideictic rhetoric in the Gallery of Honor. By

simply displaying a photograph and a family-selected representative object, this

gallery demonstrates the power of pedestrian objects. Through material rhetoric,

the tragedy is made to feel more real and relatable to visitors. Specifically, this

gallery reminds them that the victims had families, worked jobs, and had hobbies.

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The rhetorical effect of the pedestrian nature of this gallery is that visitors receive

the message that this could have been anyone—including themselves or their loved

ones. The use of material rhetoric to communicate the ordinary, everyday nature of

trauma is an increasingly popular and powerful method of remembrance and

education in history museums. When the trauma is too much (too many lives lost,

too senseless, etc.) to cognitively process, using everyday objects or artifacts to

communicate the enormity of it is common. Pedagogically, such material rhetoric

suggests that to remember and learn about a historical event fully, people must

understand more than just the “big picture.” They must see these individualized,

real, and ordinary pieces of the experience. Representation needs to go beyond just

the textual narrative of a person’s life; seeing an object and/or photo can

effectively increase the educational engagement and understanding.

What is important to me here is how material rhetoric—these pedestrian

objects and family-selected photos—can disrupt the narrative and linear structure

of history and offer new possibilities for communication and interaction among

citizens. These personal belongings and photos are not linked to one another nor

given any sort of context beyond what the introductory placard to the gallery

provides. The strong hand that guided guests through the Children’s Area and

declared particular values to be the “right” ones is released here, as visitors must

make sense of the objects without much instruction from the museum. The boxes

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combined create powerful, disjointed, non-narratives that remember victims in a

way that is complex and messy, tragic yet ordinary. Such non-linearity and

juxtapositions are productive content in that they push visitors to engage with

structures of communication that are less familiar and often harder to make sense

of. These forms of rhetoric require substantial intellectual work and engagement

from the audience—they must decide what the objects mean and how they fit (or

do not fit) into the larger narrative structure and value commitments of the

museum. I suggest that in this Gallery the OKC National Memorial Museum

models a modernized approach to rhetorical education. Visitors learn about modes

of discourse and thoughtful, nuanced approaches to communication that have

relevancy far beyond their museum visit.

Conclusion: The Possibilities of Memory for Rhetorical Education

Ultimately, when memory is expanded as a canon, new possibilities emerge

for rhetorical theory. In articulating an emerging pedagogy of memory, we can see

how memory offers meaningful directions for 21st century rhetorical education.

This discussion of the OKC National Memorial Museum illustrates both positive

directions and challenges for rhetorical education. First, when memory is central to

rhetorical education, people are more clearly able to see possibilities for

involvement and civic engagement. For instance, the OKC National Memorial

Museum constantly links its historical work to present-day civic issues, especially

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in an effort to understand the impact of violence, and encourages the public to get

involved through activities like outreach programs at schools and a speaker series

at the museum. With memory as a starting point, creating a dialogue—indeed a

dialogue about tough, uncomfortable issues—can be accomplished through such

efforts at rhetorical education. At the same time, though these opportunities for

involvement are promising, they must not be over-controlled by institutional

forces. Rhetorical education can teach people various ways to get involved in their

communities, but there must then be room for freedom of choice and individual

decision about this involvement. The pedagogy of the OKC National is the most

effective when visitors are guided but also allowed room and flexibility, most

observable in the non-directed design of the Gallery of Honor. Accompanying

these possibilities, material rhetoric affects rhetorical education as it demands that

people familiarize themselves with alternative patterns and modes of

communication—what can be added to the word? How do certain objects

communicate in ways that words cannot? In an increasingly multimodal society,

these are questions citizens must consider for their own participation in public

discourse. Indeed, further research at modern museums (and, more broadly, other

diverse public sites) can move rhetoricians toward a more developed, robust sense

of what rhetorical education looks like, how it succeeds and fails, and what it can

(and cannot) accomplish in the present day.