Quarterly Journal of Speech | 2019
The Rhetorical Invention of Diversity: Supreme Court Opinions, Public Argument, and Affirmative Action
Abstract
nography (rainbows, inverted pink triangles), grave locations (many want to be located near the gay Vietnam veteran’s grave), and media coverage of these changes. Dunn’s analysis of these changes at the Congressional cemetery sets up his discussion of Patricia Cronin’s Memorial to a Marriage as an example of a successful queer representation in a garden style gravescape. I was glad to see several images of this memorial because the sculpted Carrara marble memorial of two women embracing in bed is stunning, and Dunn describes its message as: “the love between people of the same sex is not unnatural but something of humanity, granted by God, or a part of nature” (167). In this chapter, Dunn engages with the materiality of various monuments’ relationship to memory and confirms that these monuments have the ability to disrupt heteronormativity. In the final chapter, “In (Queer Public) Memory’s Wake,” Dunn offers suggestions for the queer future of GLBTQmonuments and commemoration. Although he is wary of the normalizing effects of the GLBTQ’s turn to monumentality because of the pressure to support the status quo, he is hopeful that the second generation of monuments can be “a key resource for the GLBTQ community to expand the queer past” (179). Dunn’s case studies make a strong argument for needed changes in future commemoration in general, and the need to avoid the notion that “progress is both inevitable and irreversible” (180). He also backs away from his earlier critique of history and notes that all historical representations – GLBTQ and heterosexual – are contingent and flawed (183). I agree that the challenge for memory studies scholars is to identify the contingencies, biases, and rhetorics of historical representations. Dunn has met that mark with this book, and he has made a substantial contribution to the field of memory studies.