
Run for the Wall
Remembering Vietnam on a Motorcycle Pilgrimage
Rutgers University Press
Published on 1. June 2001
Book
Paperback/Softback
312 pages
978-0-8135-2928-8 (ISBN)
Description
Every May, for more than a decade, an ever-increasing number of motorcyclists have made the "Run for the Wall," a cross-country journey from Southern California to the "Wall," the Vietnam war memorial in Washington, D.C. While the journey's avowed purpose is political - to increase public awareness about those who remain either prisoners of war or missing in action in Southeast Asia - it also serves as a healing pilgrimage for its participants and as a "welcome-home" ritual many veterans feel they never received.
Run for the Wall is a highly readable ethnographic account of this remarkable American ritual. The authors, themselves motorcyclists as well as Run participants, demonstrate that the event is a form of secular pilgrimage. Here key concepts in American culture- "freedom," and "brotherhood," for example-are constructed and deployed in a variety of rituals and symbols to enable participants to come to terms with the consequences of the Vietnam war. While the focus is the journey itself, the book also explores other themes related to American culture and history, including the nature of community, the Vietnam war, and the creation of American secular ritual.
In moving, first-hand accounts, the book tells how participation in the POW-MIA social movement helps individuals find personal and collective meaning in America's longest and most divisive conflict. Above all, this is a story of a uniquely American form of political action, ritual, pilgrimage, and the social construction of memory.
Run for the Wall is a highly readable ethnographic account of this remarkable American ritual. The authors, themselves motorcyclists as well as Run participants, demonstrate that the event is a form of secular pilgrimage. Here key concepts in American culture- "freedom," and "brotherhood," for example-are constructed and deployed in a variety of rituals and symbols to enable participants to come to terms with the consequences of the Vietnam war. While the focus is the journey itself, the book also explores other themes related to American culture and history, including the nature of community, the Vietnam war, and the creation of American secular ritual.
In moving, first-hand accounts, the book tells how participation in the POW-MIA social movement helps individuals find personal and collective meaning in America's longest and most divisive conflict. Above all, this is a story of a uniquely American form of political action, ritual, pilgrimage, and the social construction of memory.
Reviews / Votes
Although we have chosen to write about the Run for the Wall from our porspoctives as social analysis, our interest in the Run is not merely intellectual.... Because our participation was so deep, and so personally meaningful, we hope to tell our story with a fundamental respect for all those who have ridden across the country in one another's company with the purpose of remembering - in many different ways - what the Vietnam War did to us and for us as people, and as a nation. - from Run for the WallMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
New Brunswick NJ
United States
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 230 mm
Width: 153 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
517 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-8135-2928-8 (9780813529288)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
Raymond Michalowski is a sociologist and the chair of the department of criminal Justice at Northern Arizona University. He is the author of Order law and Crime, and Radical Criminology: Critical Perspectives on Crime, Power, and Identity.
Jill Dubisch is Regents' Professor of Anthropology at Northern Arizona University. She is the author of In a Different Place: Pilgrimage, Gender, and Politics at a Greek Island Shrine.
Jill Dubisch is Regents' Professor of Anthropology at Northern Arizona University. She is the author of In a Different Place: Pilgrimage, Gender, and Politics at a Greek Island Shrine.
Content
Preface and Acknowledgments
``I Thought I was Just Going for a Ride'': Introduction
The Parade They Never Had: Chronicle of a Cross-Country Pilgrimage
``We Will Leave No One Behind'': The Politics of Remembering an Uneasy War
``We're Not Motorcycle Enthusiasts. We're Bikers!'': Veterans, Bikers, and American Popular Culture
``Pilgrims for America'': The Power of Ritual
All-The-Way Women and their Warriors: Gender on the Run
``I've Said My Piece'': Individualism and Community in a Folk Organization
Forgetting and Remembering: The Pathway Toward Healing
Notes
References
Index
``I Thought I was Just Going for a Ride'': Introduction
The Parade They Never Had: Chronicle of a Cross-Country Pilgrimage
``We Will Leave No One Behind'': The Politics of Remembering an Uneasy War
``We're Not Motorcycle Enthusiasts. We're Bikers!'': Veterans, Bikers, and American Popular Culture
``Pilgrims for America'': The Power of Ritual
All-The-Way Women and their Warriors: Gender on the Run
``I've Said My Piece'': Individualism and Community in a Folk Organization
Forgetting and Remembering: The Pathway Toward Healing
Notes
References
Index