Title: Comparing Monumental Culture in the U.S. and China at Arlington National Cemetery

The sun peeked through the trees on a chilly November morning as students in Professor Denise Ho’s class, Uses of the Past in Modern China, walked through the graves in Arlington National Cemetery. The field trip was a way to bring to life the meaning and importance of class material on “places of memory” in modern China. Ho has taught the class at multiple universities, but Georgetown’s DC location gave her fresh material.

“I’ve had a chance to teach this class in a number of different universities, including overseas, but this is the first time I’ve taught it in a capital city which comes with so much historical significance and memorial culture,” Ho says. “The ability to interface with history-making in the American context also helps remake the course for me.”

The class is an undergraduate upper level seminar in Asian studies and history. Nine students spent the semester learning about the role of the past in contemporary Chinese culture, society and politics. Ho teaches a graduate class, Chinese History in Chinese Politics, which also visited Arlington National Cemetery to see how commemorative practices in the United States compare to those in China.

Ho joined SFS this fall from Yale University, where she was an associate professor of history. Her expertise lies in the social and cultural history of the Mao period, with research interests extending to urban history, propaganda studies and material culture.

Ho arranged the class outing to Arlington National Cemetery with her former faculty colleague from Yale, Jenifer Van Vleck. Students heard from Van Vleck; the cemetery’s curator, Roderick Gaine and historian Kevin Hymel during their tour of the cemetery, which included stops at Arlington House, the gravesites of President John F. Kennedy and British Field Marshal Sir John Dill (the highest-ranking foreign military official buried there), and the artifacts in the Memorial Amphitheater Display Room.

Yasmine Parsi (SFS’26) found the field trip to be a helpful tool to bridge together the material on Chinese monuments and memorials and American history.

“We’ve often discussed the significance of commemorative spaces and this idea of preservation as something inherently modern, so it was really interesting to hear the history and meaning behind a lot of the memorial sites at Arlington,” she says.

Ho wanted to take the students to Arlington Cemetery because of the diverse aspects of the historical site: “I was particularly struck by how Arlington could combine a lot of different kinds of sites in one: it is a cemetery that spans all of U.S. history, it has monuments, it has spaces for rituals, and it also hosts a museum, which we saw in Memorial Amphitheater, and historic sites like Arlington House.”

A highlight for Sophia Lu (SFS’26) was the changing of the guard ceremony at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

“The solemnity of it all made me think about all those who have come before us and sacrificed so much so that we may be able to live in the present moment,” Lu says.

Ho was grateful that the students got to experience the ceremony because a theme in the class is the importance of ritual: “ There really isn’t any replacement for the power of witnessing a ritual live and in person.”

Lu came to the class already interested in Chinese history but it has helped her see the connections.

“I’m endlessly fascinated by the material and media cultures of China, the history of its 20th century economic development, and modern Chinese politics all around,” she says. “Visiting Arlington, listening to the historians speak, put that into perspective and helped me think more deeply about comparative contexts. I really appreciated the opportunity to see what we’ve been learning about in action.”

When teaching, Ho hopes that students take that learning back to their own cultures: “What I always hope when I teach Chinese history is that students will not only learn about a different time, place, and culture, but also that they will go back and think about familiar histories with fresh perspectives. So this was our chance to do this, to think about how we remember in the United States.”