We ended last class (a heavy one where we looked at depictions and documentation of war and conflict) examining the controversy over Maya Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington D.C. I want to leave our final question here as a prompt for continuing that reflection — How does art shape the collective or national memory of conflict? Who do you think should decide how war and remembered and through what kind of process?

These don’t have easy answers, but art plays an important role in shaping these narratives.