How do inanimate objects become historical monuments, and what is the role of the spectator in this process? Mark Gilks’ latest article, entitled ‘Battlefield monuments and popular historicism: A hermeneutic study of the aesthetic encounter with ‘Waterloo’’, seeks to answer these questions.
The article explores how historical meaning is constructed at battlefield sites. Focussing on the experience of the tourist as they aesthetically encounter war monuments, the article theorises how such encounters transfigure objects into monuments. These encounters, it is argued, constitute the origin of historical meaning.
The article draws on the theory developed in Mark’s PhD thesis, which examines how war is aesthetically experienced by soldiers.