Gathering on the National Mall: Infrastructures, Logistics, and Political Meaning-Making
A Lecture by Dr. Cristina Benedetti, Professional Associate, Center for Folklore Studies, The Ohio State University
Hosted by Folklore and Ethnomusicology at the Indiana University
Register here: https://events.iu.edu/folklore/event/188792-1
The National Mall in Washington, DC is a site of human meaning-making animated by various kinds of use: ceremony, celebration, memorialization, tourism, leisure, work, protest, and recently, insurrection. A unique political space, it has become a stage upon which various actors have called on their government and their fellow citizens to act. Building on the work of folklorists and other scholars who have turned their attention to the Mall, Dr. Benedetti suggest that employing the conceptual frames of infrastructures and logistics help surface new understandings about this landscape, and about those who have used it to make political and social claims.