The thing about a story is that you dream it as

you tell it, hoping that others might then dream

along with you, and in this way memory and
imagination and language combine to make
spirits in the head. There is the illusion of aliveness.
Tim O'Brien, The Things They Carried

The things we carry

Conjunctive memory, meaning and
interpretation in the preservation of the
Plantation Great House: A Museum to
Slavery in Tallahassee.

Abstract
People carry things both figuratively or literally. This
thesis focuses on the interpretation, symbolism
and meaning in the preserving the Plantation
Great House. This thesis will construct a
methodology through the analysis of the meaning
and how spaces in the Great House are defined,
how its history, function, use and preservation
affects the meaning of the Great House and how
it produces meaning to different individuals in
society.

Cari Anderson

How is it
interpreted?

ARCHITECT
URE
+
SLAVERY

PLANTATI
ON
GREAT
HOUSE

HERMENEU
TICS

SELECT
SOURCE
S
to
ANALYZE

SEMIOTICS

Meaning of
the Great
House

PHENOMENO
LOGY

Reality
Newspaper
Published
Papers
Documentari
es
Fantasy
Film
Artt
Novels

UNDERSTAN
DING
METHODOL
GY
-

HOW IS
MEANING
PRODUCED

SOCIAL
RELATIONS

DERIVE
Symbolism
Aesthetic
expression
Character
- Materials
- Colors
- Dimensions
- Proportions

Media
- film
- Newspaper
Artwork

Understand Great House

Plantation Architecture
through Language

Table of Contents
1. Abstract
2. Acknowledgement
3. Table of Contents
4. Introduction
5. Definitions
6. Architecture of the Plantation
1. Buildings on the Plantation
2. The Great House
7. Architecture and Semiotics
1. Signs System of Communication
2. Meaning and Symbol
8. Architecture and Interpretation
1. Definition interpretation
2. When do we interpret
3. How do we interpret
9. Sources/ Examples of Plantation Semiotics
1. Reality
2. Fiction
10. Sources/ Examples of Plantation Interpretation
1. Reality
2. Fiction
11. Production of meaning in the Great House
1. Social Relations
2. Culture
12. Methodology derived from Great House
1. Symbolism
2. Aesthetic Expression
13. Language of Great House to Museum
14. Conclusion
15. Bibliography


Slavery and Public History: The Tough Stuff of
American Memory
by James Oliver Horton, Lois E. Horton
America's slave past is being analyzed as never before, yet it
remains one of the most contentious issues in U.S. memory. In
recent years, the culture wars over the way that slavery is
remembered and taught have reached a new crescendo.
From the argument about the display of the Confederate flag
over the state house in Columbia, South Carolina, to the
dispute over Thomas Jefferson's relationship with his slave Sally
Hemings and the ongoing debates about reparations, the
questions grow ever more urgent and more difficult.

Edited by noted historians James Oliver Horton and Lois E.

Horton, this collection explores current controversies and offers
a bracing analysis of how people remember their past and
how the lessons they draw influence American politics and
culture today. Bringing together some of the nation's most
respected historians, including Ira Berlin, David W. Blight, and
Gary B. Nash, this is a major contribution to the unsettling but
crucial debate about the significance of slavery and its
meaning for racial reconciliation.

Representations of Slavery: Race and Ideology in

Southern Plantation Museums Jennifer L. Eichstedt
Stephen Small
How is slavery presented at the public and private plantation
museums in the American South, almost 150 years after the
Civil War? Jennifer L. Eichstedt and Stephen Small investigated
this question in Virginia, Georgia, and Louisiana by touring
more than one hundred plantation museums; twenty locations
organized and run by African Americans; and eighty general
history sites. Their findings indicate that the experience and
legacy of slavery is still inadequately presented within the
larger discourse surrounding race, racism, and national
identity.

The vast majority of slavery sites construct narratives of history

that valorize a white elite of the pre-emancipation South and
trivialize the experience of slavery for both enslaved people
and their enslavers. Through systematic analysis of richly
textured data, the authors of Representations of Slavery have
developed a typology of primary representational/discursive
strategies used to discuss slavery and the enslaved. They
clearly demonstrate how these strategies are linked to
representations and practices in the larger social and political
arenas.

Eichstedt and Small found counter narratives at sites organized

and staffed by African Americans, and a small number of
white-organized sites have made efforts to incorporate African
American experiences of slavery as part of their presentations.
But the predominant framework of the white-centric
exhibition narrative persists, and the authors draw from
contemporary literature on racialization, museums, cultural
studies, and collective memory to make a case for public
debate and intervention.

Literature
Reynolds, William M. Critical Studies of Southern
Place: A Reader.

Schulz, Christian. Architecture: Meaning and

Place : Selected Essays. New York, N.Y.: Rizzoli
International Publications, 1988.

Schulz, Christian. Intentions in Architecture.

Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1966.

Tuan, Yi. Space and Place: The Perspective of

Experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1977.

Lefebvre, Henri. The Production of Space. Oxford,

OX, UK: Blackwell, 1991.

Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenology of Perception.