23 January 2013

Bermudian memorial culture presentation

Professor Bruce S. Elliott, Department of History at Carleton University will be speaking on “Family, Collectivities and the State in Bermuda Memorial Culture” on Friday 25 January 2013 at 12:30 - 2:30pm in room 433, Patterson Hall.

"In the status-conscious Georgian era public monuments in the British colonies commemorated military commanders or imperial administrators; there was no thought of marking the contributions or resting places of Jack Tar or Tommy Atkins. Through the 19th century, however, gravestones erected by the surrogate family of fellow soldiers or shipmates came to represent a transitional form between family memorials and state commemoration. The First World War brought demands for state acknowledgement of general sacrifice, but only since the 1990s has Bermudian memorial culture shifted from colonial and imperial narratives to more racially inclusive public commemoration. This presentation explores the continuum between private memorials and public monuments and the politics of commemoration in a British overseas territory."

1 comment:

turner said...

Thank you John. This is most surprising from Bruce Elliot, but a wonderful idea to me. I have spent a lot of time in Bermuda, and since I was already hooked on genealogy I also toured the historic cemeteries and learned a lot about how burials were done where the ground was simply coral. I will definitely attend. Cheers.
Brenda Turner