Barbara A. Biesecker, "Reinventing World War II: Popular Memory in the Rise of the Ethnonationalist State" (Penn State Press, 2024)

Dec 13, 2024

Dr. Barbara Biesecker, an expert in rhetorical studies and author of "Reinventing World War II," delves into how popular memory shapes national identity. She explores the resurgence of World War II in American culture and its ties to ethnonationalist agendas. Biesecker discusses the Enola Gay controversy and the cultural impact of films like "Saving Private Ryan." She critiques idealized narratives of the war, emphasizing the importance of addressing complexities and historical truths in shaping contemporary political discourse.

Ask episode

Chapters

Books

Transcript

Episode notes

Intro

00:00 • 2min

Memory and Identity Post-WWII

01:34 • 17min

Exploring the Enola Gay Controversy and Public Memory of World War II

18:22 • 3min

Censorship and National Memory

20:53 • 13min

Constructing the Idealized Memory of World War II in America

33:47 • 4min

Revisiting World War II Narratives

37:55 • 8min

By the 1970s, World War II had all but disappeared from US popular culture. But beginning in the mid-eighties it reemerged with a vengeance, and for nearly fifteen years World War II was ubiquitous across US popular and political culture. In Reinventing World War II: Popular Memory in the Rise of the Ethnonationalist State (Penn State University Press, 2024), Dr. Barbara A. Biesecker explores the prestige and rhetorical power of the “Good War,” revealing how it was retooled to restore a new kind of social equilibrium to the United States.

Biesecker analyzes prominent cases of World War II remembrance, including the canceled exhibit of the Enola Gay at the National Air and Space Museum in 1995 and its replacement, Steven Spielberg’s Saving Private Ryan, Tom Brokaw’s The Greatest Generation, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Situating these popular memory texts within the culture and history wars of the day and the broader framework of US political and economic life, Dr. Biesecker argues that, with the notable exception of the Holocaust Memorial Museum, these reinventions of the Good War worked rhetorically to restore a strong sense of national identity and belonging fitted to the neoliberal nationalist agenda.

By tracing the links between the popular retooling of World War II and the national state fantasy, and by putting the lessons of Foucault, Derrida, Lacan, and their successors to work for a rhetorical-political analysis of the present, Dr. Biesecker not only explains the emergence and strength of the MAGA movement but also calls attention to the power of public memory to shape and contest ethnonational identity today.

This interview was conducted by Dr. Miranda Melcher whose new book focuses on post-conflict military integration, understanding treaty negotiation and implementation in civil war contexts, with qualitative analysis of the Angolan and Mozambican civil wars.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory