Molding the past: The rhetoric and construction of memory in everyday life

The dialectic of remembering and forgetting reveals the powerful effects of human interaction and the collective ideals or recognition of past events. Remembering is done collectively in society, in public, through interaction with the help of one another. How we, as Americans, choose to participate in constructing a collective memory is full of rhetorical implications. In an attempt to illustrate how we shape our memory and mold our past through presentation of self in everyday life, this research will examine three different aspects of everyday rhetoric: personal narratives of September 11, 2001; the vernacular rhetoric on t-shirts sold in New Orleans following the tragic events of Hurricane Katrina and the BP oil spill; and the visual rhetoric of "Rolling Memorials." These three subjects examine the construction of memory in public as an everyday act and will reveal a rhetorical analysis that helps inform how we actively construct our past to fit into our presentation of self.