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Sacred Secular Relics: World Trade Center Steel in Off-Site 9/11 Memorials in the United States

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Sacred Secular Relics: World Trade Center Steel in Off-Site 9/11 Memorials in the United States SACRED SECULAR RELICS: WORLD TRADE CENTER STEEL IN OFF-SITE 9/11 MEMORIALS IN THE UNITED STATES by Senem Guler-Biyikli B.A. in Business Administration, Koç University, 2008 M.A. in Anatolian Civilizations & Cultural Heritage Management, Koç University, 2010 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2017 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH THE DIETRICH SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented by Senem Guler-Biyikli It was defended on December 5, 2016 and approved by Bryan K. Hanks, Associate Professor, Anthropology Laura C. Brown, Assistant Professor, Anthropology Kirk Savage, Professor, History of Art & Architecture Dissertation Advisor: Robert M. Hayden, Professor, Anthropology ii Copyright © by Senem Guler-Biyikli 2017 iii SACRED SECULAR RELICS: WORLD TRADE CENTER STEEL IN OFF-SITE 9/11 MEMORIALS IN THE UNITED STATES Senem Guler-Biyikli, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2017 This dissertation analyzes material practices in the commemoration of violence and trauma through a focus on the memorialization of World Trade Center (WTC) structural steel across the United States to form hundreds of local 9/11 monuments. Less than one percent of the steel artifacts collected from the WTC site was reconfigured as sacred relics and became the focal elements of local memorials, while the rest was sold and recycled as scrap. Based on ten months of fieldwork at such local memorials primarily in the Northeastern United States, the study documents the artifacts’ memorialization, and discusses the socio-cultural factors involved in their transformation from rubble to sacred relics. I discuss the artifacts’ transformation in the context of commemoration of trauma and violence, especially in mainstream American culture, and compare with the memorialization of other historical events to point out 9/11’s exceptional place in the public imagination. In contrast to the historical practices of commemorating primarily military dead as heroes, the 9/11 commemorations focused mainly on civilian heroes and victims. The ethnographic data from the memorial settings reveal the steel’s perceived power and commemorative significance from the viewpoints of those who took part in the establishment of the memorials. The study demonstrates that the WTC steel’s reconfiguration as relics—secular but sacred artifacts instead of rubble—gave them a commemorative value that the agents of memory utilized to make social, political, and cultural statements about 9/11’s perceived exceptionality. The steel artifacts are mediums for individual and collective standpoints towards 9/11, and derive iv their sentimental quality from their imagined (and sometimes real) ties to the event, especially to the deaths of civilians. The materiality of the steel artifacts and their ability to demonstrate destruction makes physical contact and interactive commemoration practices possible. By incorporating the same type of artifacts over a large geographical territory, local memorials create a memoryscape that marks the actual and imagined connections to 9/11. Through its theoretical orientation, methodology, and subject matter, this dissertation offers a model for the analysis of such contemporary material practices that commemorate the victims of violence and trauma. v TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE ................................................................................................................................. XIII 1.0 INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 1 1.1 RESEARCH QUESTION ................................................................................... 4 1.2 KEY CONCEPTS ................................................................................................ 6 1.2.1 Religious and Secular Relics ........................................................................... 6 1.2.2 Commemoration and Memorialization ....................................................... 10 1.2.3 Commemoration and Social Memory .......................................................... 10 1.3 METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................ 11 1.3.1 Note on Place and Informant Names ........................................................... 17 1.3.2 Reception of an Anthropologist from Turkey: “You are one of us now” 17 1.3.3 Note on North American Anthropology and Fieldwork in the United States ........................................................................................................................... 19 1.4 OUTLINE OF THE CHAPTERS .................................................................... 21 2.0 MEMORY AND COMMEMORATION IN THE UNITED STATES ................. 26 2.1 COMMEMORATING TRAUMA ................................................................... 30 2.2 REMEMBERING 9/11: IMMEDIATE RESPONSES................................... 33 2.2.1 Rise of Patriotic Sentiment and War on Terrorism ................................... 38 2.2.2 Flashbulb Memories and Imagining 9/11’s Exceptionality ....................... 42 vi 2.3 NATIONAL AND RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM............................................. 48 2.4 MASCULINITY ................................................................................................ 55 2.5 NATIONAL MEMORIALS ............................................................................. 57 2.5.1 National September 11 Memorial & Museum ............................................ 57 2.5.2 Flight 93 National Memorial ........................................................................ 65 2.5.3 National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial................................................................ 68 3.0 BUILDING STEEL MEMORIALS ......................................................................... 71 3.1 AGENTS OF MEMORY .................................................................................. 71 3.2 APPLICATION ................................................................................................. 75 3.3 SELECTING THE STEEL PIECES ............................................................... 78 3.4 PROJECT DESIGN AND LOCATION .......................................................... 81 3.5 FUNDRAISING AND COMMUNITY ............................................................ 86 3.6 CONCERNS, CHALLENGES, AND OPPOSITIONS .................................. 91 4.0 RELICS OF 9/11: ARTIFACTS TURNED INTO SOCIAL ACTORS ................ 94 4.1 POWER OF OBJECTS .................................................................................... 96 4.1.1 Historical Overview: Association Items and American Relics ................ 101 4.2 BIOGRAPHY OF STEEL .............................................................................. 108 4.2.1 Steel as Construction Material ................................................................... 109 4.2.2 Steel as Rubble ............................................................................................. 113 4.2.3 Steel as Relic ................................................................................................. 116 4.2.3.1 “Please Touch and Never Forget” ................................................... 117 4.2.3.2 Disappeared bodies and buildings ................................................... 125 4.2.3.3 Origins ................................................................................................ 130 vii 4.2.3.4 Voices from New York: “We lived it” ............................................. 132 5.0 MATERIALITY, SPACE, AND PERFORMANCE ............................................ 141 5.1 MATERIALITY OF STEEL .......................................................................... 141 5.1.1 Handling the Steel ........................................................................................ 146 5.1.2 Material Memories ...................................................................................... 150 5.1.3 Hangar 17 Experience ................................................................................. 153 5.1.4 Form and Texture ........................................................................................ 157 5.2 SPACE, PLACE, AND MEMORYSCAPE ................................................... 162 5.2.1 Making a Commemorative Space .............................................................. 167 5.3 COMMEMORATIVE PERFORMANCE .................................................... 179 5.3.1 Bringing the Steel......................................................................................... 182 5.3.2 Dedication ..................................................................................................... 187 5.3.3 Anniversary .................................................................................................. 189 6.0 NARRATIVE AND REPRESENTATION AT LOCAL MEMORIALS ........... 197 6.1 HISTORICAL VERSUS COMMEMORATIVE VOICE ........................... 199 6.2 THE CONCEPTS OF VICTIMHOOD AND HEROISM ........................... 201 6.3 NARRATIVE AT THE LOCAL MEMORIALS ......................................... 207 6.3.1 Naming the Dead ......................................................................................... 207 6.3.2 Innocence and Sacrifice............................................................................... 212 6.3.3 Strength and Renewal ................................................................................
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