ANNOTATED ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY LITERATURE LITERATURE REVIEW

The sources composed in the included bibliography can be thought of as fingers that are a part of a greater discussion on the ability of architecture to be a healing device. Specifically, these sources are a part of a web that researches and observes the nature of dark heritage and the role it has in the built environment. Each source falls into the topics of understanding negative heritage, precedents on healing architecture, and sources that discuss the dark narrative topic of my thesis. Overall, each source confirms the importance of the design question; why and how can critical design systems be used to restore lost agency in heritage to a culture or community that has had that identity stolen, damaged, or erased?

The article Dark Heritage is a resource that expands the concept of dark heritage to include connected and their perceived and implied understandings. By doing so, the article complexities discussions of dark heritage and dark tourism by considering the economic, political, and social implications. Similarly connected with the journal, Healing Architecture: Evidence, Intuition, Dialogue, in which the author focuses on the architect’s role as a mediator in providing healing spaces. Both resources discuss the implications and impacts of the concept of dark heritage on a site and a community while confirming the significant role design can have in promoting spaces of healing. These articles have been crucial in developing my project development by providing conversations about how design has impacted people and places by confronting narratives that have been erased or forgotten.

The precedent works include conversations about the reconciliation methods communities have implemented to confront their dark narratives. By reading the sources, I learned that a design intervention that deals with dark heritage needs to be highly executed and well crafted to truly provide a community with a space of healing. As seen in The Nuremberg Nazi Rally Grounds, I observed the possible forms of these healing interventions, such as the exhibit and immersive experience Nuremberg implemented on the Rally Grounds. From this research, I specifically became interested in exploring healing interventions that memorialize the history of Virginia Eugenics at Western State Hospital.

This first web of resources assisted me in discerning the community, site, and design solution I will take on for the thesis proposal, by identifying the tangible and intangible resources that distressed communities truly benefit from. By understanding the type and scale of communities that have seen positive feedback from projects built to engage with reconciliation and in thinking about my own interactions with sites of dark heritage, I was able to identify a site that I am connected to personally but one that also is a part of a larger global conversation. This led me to choose the topic and site of the five sites of affiiation to Western State Hospital in Staunton, Virginia, led in practice for 40 years by Dr. Joseph DeJarnette, a leading doctor of eugenics, in the mid-20th century.

The second set of resources is based on further research of the site chosen and the dark narrative it contains. They identify the social, political, and cultural impact of the hospital in Staunton, Virginia, thus, helping me to identify the scope of work to be executed. Specifically, the article, The Sterilization of Carrie Buck, testifies to the lasting effect of sterilization in the 20th century on the following generations of people living in Staunton. This encouraged me to explore a design proposal that functions as a memorial, while also spreading awareness for the advancement of female healthcare and rights. Other sources such as Segregation’s Science: Eugenics and Society in Virginia, and, Medicine, Eugenics, and the Supreme Court: From Coercive Sterilization to Reproductive Freedom, were critical in developing the narrative to be presented in my thesis by weaving conversations about eugenics in Virginia, with national and international laws and aid on reproductive rights.

In closing, the sources included assert the impact of negative heritage on cultural and social identity by discussing past, present, and future trajectories of the failure or success in the restoration of human dignity. By understanding precedents for healing that have been successful and by immersing myself in the narrative of eugenics and suppressed rights, these sources were critical in the development of the scope and argument of this thesis.

Battle, Meredith. Go Down the Mountain. Mascot Books, 2019.

SUMMARIZE: This book by Meredith Battle is a historical fiction book based on real stories and encounters with families displaced by the Shenandoah National Park and Blue Ridge Parkway in the 1930s. The story follows an Appalachian girl who embarks on a journey to discover the truth of her family history and ancestors.

ASSESS: Although I have yet to get my hands on this book, reviews of the book rave about the vividness and genuineness of the book’s ability to flush out many of the lost stories of the Appalachian people. Specifically, the book is said to capture the resettlement of homes and families, sterilization of women, institutionalization of people, and broken government and local business deals.

REFLECT: Many stories of what truly happened to people living in the Appalachian have been lost or erased over the decades. Battle’s ability to interview and digest information and stories from generations of families who still live in the region, presents a narrative that tells the stories of the a history forgotten.

Dorr, Gregory Michael. “Defective or Disabled?: Race, Medicine, and Eugenics in Progressive Era Virginia and Alabama.” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 5, no. 4 (2006): 359–92.

SUMMARIZE: The book delves into the politics of race and eugenics, specifically in the examination of the social structure of the South in the 20th century. It speaks to the scientific research and undertakings of physicians in the South who developed theories on the “scientific explanation” of sexual perversion of the African American male due to ancestral heredity that thus calls for eugenic sterilization to “perfect the race”.

ASSESS: This article provides philosophical, cultural, and political analysis of the scientific evaluation of heredity during the 20th century, specifically its impact on who was deemed a candidate for sterilization.

REFLECT: This article targets the politics of race in the context of eugenics and sterilization during the 20th century, which will be important in understanding why the minority groups in Staunton were targeted and what traits marked them as defective candidates for physical intervention.

Dorr, Gregory Michael. 2008. Segregation’s Science : Eugenics and Society in Virginia. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press. Accessed November 22, 2022. ProQuest Ebook Central.

SUMMARIZE: Dorr’s book examines the science of eugenics in Virginia, specifically considering the role of the Eugenics Society of Virginia and the theory and practice of eugenics in junction with issues of segregation and discrimination. It explores theories of biological inequalities in the 19th and 20th centuries and the culture of scientific “improvement” of race and biology.

ASSESS: This book carefully considers the culture of eugenics through the perspective of minority races and how social policy was executed through scientific theory and practice. It is an important critique of racial sciences and the manipulation of race and biology, specifically the objectivity and bias often presented in scientific theories relating to these topics.

REFLECT: The critique of objectivity and bias in scientific practice, especially upon the execution of social practice through scientific procedures, is a key critique in understanding how social power can be obtained through privilege that is a result of biology. It will be an important resource in my thesis in exploring how such practices of bias were executed without recognition of the dangers of objectivity.

Lombardo, Paul A.. Three Generations, No Imbeciles: Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck V. Bell. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008.

SUMMARIZE: This book by Lombardo delves into the Supreme Court case of Buck v. Bell in 1927, and its landmark ruling deeming states were permitted to forcibly sterilize residents to prevent those considered “feebleminded” on reproducing. The book discusses the problems, fraud, and corruption that took place in this court case that made way for thousands to be sterilized after Buck.

ASSESS: Understanding enforced health procedures by government policy, and in this case, the only rule that permitted a procedure as a tool of enforcing policy, is what permitted sanitariums such as DeJarnette to function for decades in the 20th century. By exposing the corruption of the case in this book, Lombardo speaks to the power of the government over those subjected to discrimination and given no voice due to their place in society.

REFLECT: The potency of this case and wrongful ruling against Buck is a key player in the function and execution of sanitariums in Virginia during this period. In understanding why and who the government deemed unfit for breeding, this book will play a key role in developing the narrative as to why this period in history has been erased from many communities’ identities.

Lombardo, Paul A. “Medicine, Eugenics, and the Supreme Court: From Coercive Sterilization to Reproductive Freedom.” Journal of Contemporary Health Law and Policy 13 (n.d.): 27.

SUMMARIZE: This article delves into the classification of social deviance by medical examination which was backed by said scientific evidence to diagnose someone as an imbecile. It also examines a series of Supreme Court cases between 1924 and 1970 and the development of healthcare freedoms and rights from early fraudulent rulings to the Virginia state later overturning the forced sterilization laws.

ASSESS: While this article looks more closely at the law classifications of mental illness in the 20th century it speaks to the importance of court cases and their development into fair and rightfully ruled cases without being manipulated by bias or taking advantage of people’s lack of knowledge due to their place in society. It speaks more greatly to the rulings against reproductive rights in the US beyond forced sterilization and how the rights movements of the later 20th century played a key role in the healthcare and health rights that we know today.

REFLECT: This article will be important in understanding where healthcare was and how it developed into what we know it today, specifically focused on reproductive rights and liberties. It speaks to the evolution of the perception of mental illness and how systems were developed to better support people rather than taking advantage of them.

Lundin, Stefan. “Healing Architecture: Evidence, Intuition, Dialogue.” Licentiate, Chalmers Tekniska Hogskola (Sweden). Accessed September 21, 2022.

https://www.proquest.com/docview/2421524734/abstract/1DC03BEB175E4C85PQ/1

SUMMARIZE: Lundin Stefan’s Thesis Dissertation title Healing Architecture: Evidence, Intuition, Dialogue,” argues that the architect’s ability to create a design that performs as a healing architecture relies on the architect’s ability to be critically reflective of their own design, practice, and research. This argument takes a strong stance that true healing architecture exists out of the architect’s ability to stand at the intersection of their own objective stance and ability to join in the collaborative conversation of cities and spaces.

ASSESS: Stefan’s dissertation explores multi-levels of architectural healing spaces and how the design proposal and executions were formed under a careful study of how a space could promote active healing.

REFLECT: This article focuses on the architect’s role in becoming a mediator in the design process to promote spaces that truly heal by conducting thorough research and fieldwork rather than promoting design out of subjective stances on how a space could heal.

Macdonald, Sharon. Difficult Heritage: Negotiating the Nazi Past in Nuremberg and Beyond. London, UNITED KINGDOM: Taylor & Francis Group, 2008. http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uva/detail.action?docID=589616

SUMMARIZE: Sharon Macdonald’s, Difficult Heritage: Negotiating the Nazi Past in Nuremberg and Beyond, provides a careful and in-depth examination of Nuremberg, Germany, specifically studying how the city has attempted to face the implications of its negative heritage. Through this case study of Nuremberg, Macdonald begins to explore and suggest ways in which places with difficult heritage can look towards an informed future that honors a complex history.

ASSESS: Macdonald’s book tackles a larger narrative and conversation about the ability of cities and spaces to face their difficult or negative heritage in a way that begins to shape present identities with informed perspectives of the past, specifically those that have cultural weight. She allows the reader to think about spaces that carry a difficult pass as not a lost cause, but a space for education, opportunity, and redemption.

REFLECT: This book faces the question of how a city with a difficult heritage can become an educational institution of cultural awareness through sensitivity and attentiveness to design, art, and culture. This book presents methods, dialogues, and motivations for why difficult heritage is an important and critical aspect of how a modern civilization experiences a place.

Museen. “The Nazi Party Rally Grounds.” Accessed September 20, 2022. https://museums.nuernberg.de/documentation-center/the-site/the-Nazi-party-rally-grounds

SUMMARIZE: This digital archive holds the active conduction of the transformation of the Nazi Rally Grounds in Nuremberg, Germany as a site that includes an intricate physical and intangible network of exhibitions, plaques, recordings, and tours that detail the negative heritage of the site. By archiving this information both physically and on a digital platform, the authentic narrative of the site is accessible to both the visitor and the digital observer.

ASSESS: The Nuremberg Nazi Rally Grounds Archive is a tool for research in understanding why a site with a difficult heritage needs to address this narrative in a way that is informative, while also respecting the tragedy that occurred.

REFLECT: This is an active and ongoing case study on how a design proposal and solution could strengthen the preservation of the authentic heritage of a site. It shows that the process of facing difficult heritage is a constant, evolving process.

Seitsonen, Oula, and Eerika Koskinen-Koivisto. “* Dark Heritage (2019).” Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, January 1, 2019. https://www.academia.edu/40170226/_Dark_Heritage_2019_.

SUMMARIZE: Oula Seitsonen and Eerike Koshkinen-Koivisto’s essay titled, Dark Heritage, discusses the development of the concept of dark heritage in the specific context of archaeology and cultural heritage studies. The authors argue that the concept of dark heritage is better understood in the broader context of heritage studies in order to expand the scope of heritage.

ASSESS: This article expands the concept of dark heritage to include connected terms such as “contested heritage,” “negative heritage,” and “difficult heritage,” discussing these terms by their perceived and implied understandings. By doing so, the article complexities discussions of dark heritage and dark tourism by considering the economic, political, and social implications.

REFLECT: “Dark heritage” and its related terms are concepts that are easily detached from their literal meanings by removing the weight of what the terms identify as issues in societies and cultures. This article reinstitutes the significance of these concepts and how they should be used in discussing tragic history in relation to architecture and archaeology.

SUMMARIZE: This book tells the story of a young woman named Carrie Buck, who was sterilized in 1926 without her consent and knowledge. After her first baby was born and taken from her, Buck was deemed mentally “retarded” and an “imbecile” and thus became the first victim of the Virginia Compulsory Sterilization Law. Through the book, Smith and Nelson discuss the development of Eugenics practices and the evolution of legislation concerning sterilization. It focuses on the laws, activism, agency, and feminism surrounding the forced sterilization of women during the 20th century and how Carrie Buck’s life was important in the call for women’s rights.

ASSESS: By telling the narrative for what deemed someone suitable for sterilization due to proclaimed mental impairedness during the 20th century, this book looks at the perspective of eugenics from a personal perspective, as well as a legal and global perspective. It captures the essential corruption of female healthcare during this period and writes about the development of laws and rights to protect females and those diagnosed with mental illness from unsafe and corrupt health procedures.

REFLECT: Carrie Buck was a young, poor, and powerless woman who was taken advantage of by those who had the power and privilege to deem her as “unfit to breed.” This book will play a critical role in understanding what it was like to be a patient in these practices and why this narrative has a dark footprint on many communities to this day. Generations of relatives of patients such as Carrie Buck struggle to understand the malintent against their predecessors and live with the consequences of the harm done against them to this day.