Epilogue—Turning to the Wall: Concepts across Space and Time
Abstract
György Tóth
University of Stirling
Scotland, United Kingdom
Epilogue—Turning to the Wall:
Concepts across Space and Time
Abstract: The epilogue to this journal issue interrogates a variety of aspects of walls as mental structures and tropes of historical memory. Engaging with the issue’s contributing authors, Tóth argues that the idea of the wall functions as metonymy, activating a siege mentality and mobilizing its target audience – hence its rhetorical power and attraction as policy. Discussing the wall’s symbology as a border of the nation state but also pointing out its increasing privatization, the piece concludes with an exploration of the potential that walls may have for the creative subversion of their original function to seal off, categorize and divide humans.
Keywords: commentary, Trump, historical memory, metonymy, art
Keywords
commentary; Trump; historical memory; metonymy; art
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University of Stirling Scotland, United Kingdom United Kingdom
György Tóth holds degrees from Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary (M.A.s in English Language & Lit and American Studies) and The University of Iowa, Iowa City, Iowa, USA (Ph.D. in American Studies). In his academic specializations, György combines U.S. cultural and social history with Transnational American Studies, Performance Studies and Memory Studies to yield interdisciplinary insights into the politics of U.S. social and cultural movements in post-1945 Europe. Since December 2014 György has been serving as Lecturer in post-1945 U.S. History and Transatlantic Relations at the Division of History and Politics of the University of Stirling, Scotland, UK. His book From Wounded Knee to Checkpoint Charlie was published by SUNY Press in 2016. http://www.sunypress.edu/p-6245-from-wounded-knee-to-checkpoint.aspx
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