Panel Discussion: Paper Trails: Memorials in an Age of Anxiety

In the aftermath of the 2015 terror attacks in Paris, people paid tribute to the victims by bringing to the sites flowers, notes, candles, paintings – all sorts of offerings forming spontaneous memorials. Sarah Gensburger was one of the sociologists who documented their evolution, while the Paris Archives collected their contents. Similarly, Nora Philippe filmed the Women’s March on Washington D.C. in 2017 and, more tellingly, captured on film the morning after, when thousands of signs and testimonies of the historical moment were collected by passers-by for posterity or janitors for the garbage trucks. More recently, during the assault on the Capitol, while trespassers inside were taking selfies to capture the moment, outside, a few hours later, the Library of Congress was gathering abandoned signs on the Mall.