A dark and shining stone: Symbol contests and the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

摘要

Virtually everything written about the national Vietnam Veterans Memorial refers to the public controversy sparked by its original design--the angled, polished black granite wall of names now known simply as "The Wall." No study, however, has paid sustained or systematic attention to how the design was described, characterized, or otherwise presented to the public. Nor has any study recognized that news media reports were the only public source of information about the design, both when it was first chosen and when it was its most controversial. Moreover, recent scholarship has led to competing claims as to whether the controversy over The Wall was caused by the art of its nontraditional, abstract design, or by the politics of the unpopular, unsuccessful war it commemorates.;This dissertation examines the public presentation of The Wall's design by print news media including the New York Times, Washington Post, Christian Science Monitor, Time, Newsweek, and U.S. News and World Report. By revisiting the controversy through journalists' accounts of it, this dissertation seeks to recall the terms of the debate, and clarify the reported nature and cause of the dispute.;Disagreement over the design centered on the meaning of its color, shape, size, siting, and content, which resulted in a symbol contest that forced modifications and additions. In spite of these changes and the sharpness of the disagreement, The Wall has become the most visited and most celebrated war memorial in the history of the country. This shift in public sentiment can be explained largely by considering the difference between imagining unfamiliar new objects in the built environment and experiencing them.;Based on an analysis of 327 articles published between 1980 and 1988, this dissertation demonstrates how print news media attributed the Memorial design controversy to art more often than to politics. It also argues that once The Wall was built and opened to the public negative reaction to it effectively dissolved.;The conclusions of this dissertation contribute to a better understanding of the links between public art, politics, and the symbol contests they engender.