{"type":"rich","version":"1.0","provider_name":"Transistor","provider_url":"https://transistor.fm","author_name":"Chasing Leviathan","title":"Memory, Place, and the Monuments We Build | Dr. Janet Donohoe","html":"","width":"100%","height":180,"duration":2829,"description":"What happens when we blindly accept the monuments in our built world, treating them as permanent fixtures of history rather than invitations to critique the traditions they represent? The University of West Georgia's Emerita Professor of Philosophy, Dr. Janet Donohoe, joins host PJ Wehry to discuss the overlooked dynamism of our built environment and how we interact with public memory. Dr. Donohoe explores the complex ties between physical spaces and tradition in her book, Remembering Places: A Phenomenological Study of the Relationship between Memory and Place. They examine how the removal of monuments is not an erasure of history but a rewriting of it, and how understanding our physical world can help us critically engage with the narratives we pass on to future generations. In this conversation they explore: How monuments function as a \"palimpsest,\" where tearing them down doesn't remove the place but instead writes over it, leaving underlying traces of memory and tradition. Husserl’s concepts of the \"home world\" and \"alien world,\" demonstrating how our childhood environments physically write themselves onto our bodies and set our normative baseline for experiencing new places. The striking contrast between the World War II Memorial, which uses its overbearing scale to dictate a narrative of American power, and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, an open space that invites profound personal reflection and critique. Why rushing to memorialize tragedies, such as the push to immediately erect 9/11 monuments, often solidifies a narrative of victimization without allowing for the necessary time to process and understand the long-term impact. The dual meaning of the word \"monument\"—to remember and to be mindful—which calls us to actively critique our traditions rather than blindly perpetuating them. How the meaning of a monument is never truly \"set in stone,\" but rather emerges dynamically in the continuous encounter between the viewer and the physical space. This is a...","thumbnail_url":"https://img.transistorcdn.com/oFG5X3hnTWeg1jpjktisRS_sI049dZZYEQFpaR8md3g/rs:fill:0:0:1/w:400/h:400/q:60/mb:500000/aHR0cHM6Ly9pbWct/dXBsb2FkLXByb2R1/Y3Rpb24udHJhbnNp/c3Rvci5mbS9zaG93/LzIxNDQ2LzE2MzMx/MTQ3MTctYXJ0d29y/ay5qcGc.webp","thumbnail_width":300,"thumbnail_height":300}