Epilogue: Turning to the Wall. Concepts across Space and Time Cover Image

Epilogue: Turning to the Wall. Concepts across Space and Time
Epilogue: Turning to the Wall. Concepts across Space and Time

Author(s): György Tóth
Subject(s): History, Social Sciences, Fine Arts / Performing Arts, Politics of History/Memory
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego
Keywords: commentary; Trump; historical memory; metonymy; art

Summary/Abstract: The epilogue to this journal issue interrogates a variety of aspects of walls as mental structures and tropes of historical memory. Engaging with the issue’s contributing authors, Toth argues that the idea of the wall functions as metonymy, activating a siege mentality and mobilizing its target audience—hence its rhetorical power and attraction as policy. Discussing the wall’s symbology as a border of the nation state but also pointing out its increasing privatization, the piece concludes with an exploration of the potential that walls may have for the creative subversion of their original function to seal off, categorize and divide humans.

  • Issue Year: 11/2018
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 191-203
  • Page Count: 13
  • Language: English