LITERARY CRITICISM AND CULTURAL THEORY
Edited by
William E. Cain
Professor of English
Wellesley College
A ROUTLEDGE SERIES
LITERARY CRITICISM AND CULTURAL THEORY
WILLIAM E. CAIN, General Editor
NEGOTIATING COPYRIGHT
Authorship and the Discourse of Literary Property Rights in Nineteenth-Century America
Martin T. Buinicki
FOREIGN BODIES
Trauma, Corporeality, and Textuality in Contemporary American Culture
Laura Di Prete
OVERHEARD VOICES
ADDRESS AND SUBJECTIVITY IN POSTMODERN AMERICAN POETRY
Ann Keniston
MUSEUM MEDIATIONS
Reframing Ekphrasis in Contemporary American Poetry
Barbara K. Fischer
THE POLITICS OF MELANCHOLY FROM SPENSER TO MILTON
Adam H. Kitzes
URBAN REVELATIONS
Images of Ruin in the American City, 17901860
Donald J. McNutt
POSTMODERNISM AND ITS OTHERS
The Fiction of Ishmael Reed, Kathy Acker, and Don DeLillo
Jeffrey Ebbesen
DIFFERENT DISPATCHES
Journalism in American Modernist Prose
David T. Humphries
DIVERGENT VISIONS, CONTESTED SPACES
The Early United States through the Lens of Travel
Jeffrey Hotz
LIKE PARCHMENT IN THE FIRE
Literature and Radicalism in the English Civil War
Prasanta Chakravarty
BETWEEN THE ANGLE AND THE CURVE
Mapping Gender, Race, Space, and Identity in Willa Cather and Toni Morrison
Danielle Russell
RHIZOSPHERE
Gilles Deleuze and the Minor American Writings of William James, W.E.B. Du Bois, Gertrude Stein, Jean Toomer, and William Faulkner
Mary F. Zamberlin
THE SPELL CAST BY REMAINS
The Myth of Wilderness in Modern American Literature
Patricia A. Ross
STRANGE CASES
The Medical Case History and the British Novel
Jason Daniel Tougaw
REVISITING VIETNAM
Memoirs, Memorials, Museums
Julia Bleakney
REVISITING VIETNAM
Memoirs, Memorials, Museums
Julia Bleakney
Routledge
New York & London
Permissions
Excerpts from The Things They Carried by Tim OBrien. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Company. Copyright 1990 by Tim OBrien. All rights reserved.
Excerpts from The Things They Carried by Tim OBrien. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers Ltd. Copyright 1990 by Tim OBrien.
Routledge
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2006 by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC
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International Standard Book Number-10: 0-415-97840-8 (Hardcover)
International Standard Book Number-13: 978-0-415-97840-8 (Hardcover)
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Bleakney, Julia.
Revisiting Vietnam : memoirs, memorials, museums / by Julia Bleakney.
p. cm. -- (Literary criticism and cultural theory)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-97840-8 (alk. paper)
1. Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975--Monuments--United States. 2. Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975--Monuments--Vietnam. 3. Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975--Veterans--United States. 4. Vietnamese Conflict, 1961-1975--Psychological aspects. 5. Vietnam--Description and travel. I. Title. II. Series.
DS559.825.B44 2006
959.70436--dc22 | 2006005510 |
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Without the initial encouragement of William T.M. Riches and Kathleen McCracken, my undergraduate professors at the University of Ulster at Jordanstown, I never would have pursued graduate school let alone this project or believed that I could complete either. Now, there are many to thank for helping me understand the Vietnam War and the memory practices of its veterans. My colleagues at the University of MinnesotaIlene Alexander, Beverly Atkinson, Matt Basso, Melanie Brown, David Gray, Mary Rizzo, Rebecca Scherr, Angela Smith, Christina Schmid, Marie Sulit, Dorthe Troeften, Allison Wee, and Dave Wehnerread rough chapters and provided helpful feedback and scholarly and personal support over the years. In addition to their ongoing engagement and encouragement, my dissertation committee members Thomas Augst, Paula Rabinowitz, and Karen Till proposed new ways to frame ideas and helped me understand particular theoretical or literary concepts. (Any failure to integrate or apply these concepts is of course my own responsibility.) Jacqueline Bailey, Tim Edensor, and Naomi Scheman offered specific comments at conferences or in graduate seminars that enabled me to see parts of my project in more complex ways. A special thank you to my committee member Elaine Tyler May, who has been continually supportive, helpful, and thoughtful in comments and conversations. Finally, my advisor Ellen Messer-Davidow read and re-read endless versions of drafts, commenting thoroughly and usefully every time and offering substantive suggestions that shaped the project in important ways.
During the initial writing process, several individuals provided me with crucial information: thank you to Mary Cheville, Assistant Librarian, Waverly Public Library; Col. Dick Leighninger, Minnesota Wing Commemorative Air Force; and Richard Kaspari, Minneapolis-based amateur gun expert. Grateful acknowledgments to Scott Laderman and Edwin Martini for giving me access to unpublished material.
As I worked on revisions to the manuscript in 2005, many people helped me with additional information and gave me permission to use text or images. Thank you Jess DeVaney, President, Tours of Peace; Art Dockter; Jane Ann Cable Fulkerson, Sgt. U.S. Army, 196568; Valeska Hilbig, Smithsonians National Museum of American History; Larry James, Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall page; Judy Keyserling, Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund; Jennifer Komorowski, National Vietnam Veterans Art Museum; Jerry Sax, Gridley High School; Ted Sampley, U.S. Veteran Dispatch; and the volunteers at The Virtual Wall (TM), www.VirtualWall.org. I also wish to thank the anonymous veterans and family members and friends of the deceased who gave me permission to use their online postings.
The revision process was ably assisted by Liz Hutter, who provided much needed feedback on one chapter, and Elizabeth Oliver, who proofread the chapters. Also making the process easier has been the support and encouragement of my colleague at Saddleback College, Amy Ahearn. Thank you to William E. Cain, the Literary Criticism and Cultural Theory series general editor, for the opportunity to publish the manuscript, to Max Novick, the patient and tolerant-of-many-questions editor, and to Carey Nershi, who with good grace and humor helped me through the final stages of the books proofs.
