Overview

Full Product Details

9781622739653

Table of Contents

Reviews

Inspired by the discovery of two intentionally-buried tombstones, Williams presents a thorough analysis that incorporates race, commemoration, and memory across several generations. The author illustrates how various constituencies over time interacted with - even buried - these markers in order to manipulate memory in deliberate and consequential ways. During the mid-1800s, influential community leader Alexander Dunlop seized the opportunity to proclaim his family's embodiment of American values as examples of his community's potential to contribute to the American nation. This occurred during a period in which the paradox of enslavement in American democracy became unsustainable. Dunlop designed his family's tombstones to communicate their Christian mores and American identity. The markers adroitly broadcast his aspirations for the nation's future while employing non-threatening messaging through epitaphs, iconography, and material choice. Williams presents an engaging narrative of memory, commemoration, and agency through object biography, demonstrating that the visibility of the tombstones and their aspirational messages were not passive reflections of the individuals memorialized, but actively communicated a vision of the future in which all Americans - even those formerly enslaved - participated. She deftly relates contemporary dialogues about Confederate monuments and memorial creation, using the Dunlop family gravestones as one case study. Through Williams' clever, micro-historical analysis, these tombstones demonstrate both the mutability and endurance of their powerful messages over the generations. Williams' investigation epitomizes the potential of object biography and microhistory. Stories in Stone is enlightening, inspiring, and instructive. Its multidisciplinary approach has broad appeal for a variety of audiences, including those interested in anthropology, history, historic preservation, civics, conservation, linguistics, and race. Laura J. Galke Chief Curator Virginia Department of Historic Resources This is a sophisticated and highly contextualised study that places a small group of memorials in their various contexts, indicating the ways in which material culture can have complex biographies, which are not only commemorative but also seen as dangerous and subversive by some. Although working out from very few objects, this study relates to a series of larger issues, both in terms of time and place, and theoretical and methodological issues. It is a valuable contribution to material culture studies, as well as gravestone studies and historical archaeology. The conservation aspect is particularly welcome; conservation is often portrayed as having ethics regarding authenticity and truth to materials, but not the wider implication so of decisions around conservation (or not). The Post-Bellum world of Virginia has a social-cultural dynamic of its own but part also of that of the South; this revisited the monument with its burial in the early 20th century. Here the micro-history and object biography combine with larger-scale forces that make the study of wide significance. Harold Mytum Professor of Archaeology, School of Histories, Languages and Cultures, University of Liverpool

Author Information

Emily Williams has been an Associate Professor at Durham University since 2018, where she is in charge of the master's program in the Conservation of Archaeological and Museum Objects. Prior to holding this position, she was the Senior Conservator for Archaeological Materials at the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation. She obtained a BA in Art History and History from Rice University, a MA in the Conservation of Archaeological Objects from Durham University, and a PhD in Archaeology and Ancient History from the University of Leicester. Emily Williams has also worked on sites and in museums in many countries, including Australia, Bermuda, Syria, and Turkey, and she has taught courses on conservation and collections care in Egypt and Malaysia.

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available