Doctoral Candidate Amy Bowman Co-Authors Book Chapter on Pittsburgh Civic Arena

PhD candidate Amy J. Bowman-McElhone co-authored a book chapter with rhetorician Dr. Jeanne Persuit, associate professor of Communication Studies at University of North Carolina Wilmington, in the edited volume, Contested Commemoration in U.S. History: Diverging Public Interpretations. The volume is part of the Routledge series Global Perspectives on Public History.

The chapter, “Memory-Place and the Unintentional Monument: Pittsburgh’s Civic Arena (1961–2012) and Its Legacy” originated in Dr. Karen Bearor‘s Monuments and Memorials course in the spring of 2013. It centers on the now demolished Civic Arena in the historically black neighborhood of the Hill District in Pittsburgh, PA as an unintentional monument, memory-place, and contested heritage site through which the narratives of late twentieth century race relations in Pittsburgh can be re-read.

Amy recently moved to Pittsburgh to join the faculty of the Carlow University Department of Art, as assistant professor and director of the University Art Gallery. Her teaching and research areas are contemporary art, critical theory, museal practice and theory, and art in public spaces.