Thursday, September 10, 2015

Violent Death & Historical Places

My thesis has evolved much since I began thinking about it. Originally I wanted to study places that were 'haunted' or at least thought to be. However I decided that toning it back to the heart of the matter was what was important, and especially to show in a professional light. I'm very interested in dark history, and I want to evaluate how various historical sites/museums deal with violent death in their history. Do they mention it? How do they talk about it? Do they make a joke or a gimmick out of it? These are many of the questions I want to look at by interviewing the staff at these sites.

The various sites I'm looking into include The Lizzie Borden House, Salem, Alcatraz, Antietam, and Sloss Furnaces. All of these sites have different levels of past violent death, and different ways of handling them today. I want to know the motivations behind each one of these decisions, and possibly lay down a code of ethics for talking about violent death at places of dark tourism.

-Jean Pietrowski

3 comments:

  1. Jean,

    I am also intrigued by dark history, dark tourism, and traumatic events. As you mentioned, it is of the utmost importance to use examples for your thesis within these fields that are more professional in nature. I believe that you can build a strong research paper evaluating various sites and how each respectively portrays violent deaths. I am looking forward to hearing more about your thesis and your process of obtaining information from these institutions in the future.

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  2. You have a good start in your thesis! In my opinion, the evaluation on various sites and their levels of past death might make it more interested than you may think it to be.

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  3. i also like haunted places and hear many things about Lizzie Borden House. I want to see all these places ones in life

    Regards
    shahid

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